


miles to go before I sleep

by ephelid, sealbatross



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bonding, Depression, Found Family, Gen, Recovery, Sad with a Happy Ending, Self Loathing, Severus Snape Lives, Suicidal Ideation, daily updates, snape big bang 2019, two dumbasses meet in the woods, with art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23461057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephelid/pseuds/ephelid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sealbatross/pseuds/sealbatross
Summary: After faking his own death, Severus Snape is living the dream. Alone in the woods, without talking to anyone, just him, his memories, his trauma, his growing social anxiety, his nightmares and his books. He couldn't hope for better than that. He cannot hope anything. He forgot how to.So when a runaway little girl finds him, he's ready to abandon her to her fate. He no longer want to take responsibility of anyone. And this child is particularly annoying. She has no manners, she's loud, she's not impressed by him and won't obey. Just his luck.But helping children in need is a bad habit that's hard to quit...__________This is part of the Snape Bang 2019, every chapter comes with the art of the very talented sealbatross!
Relationships: Severus Snape & Original Character, severus snape & original child character
Comments: 12
Kudos: 67
Collections: Snape Bigbang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Very proud to present our contribution to the snape bang 2019!
> 
> You can see more art (and show some love) to sealbatross here: https://sealbatross.tumblr.com/ 
> 
> Enjoy!

What keeps a man going? Wondered Snape as he was stirring a can of baked beans. When all promises are fulfilled, when all orders are received, when all missions are cleared, what string to pull, what button to push, what spell to cast, to convince a body to get up, to move, to keep living? When the thin veil that separates a man from his death is freely floating, with no duty, no rule, no mission to weigh it down, what refrains him from walking through?

Dumbledore would have said «love» or the pointless ambitions that only conceal a lack of love, and for the first time, Snape felt relieved that Dumbledore was no longer there. He couldn't bear hearing that kind of comment now.

He blew on his spoon of beans, and took a sip of water out of the bowl nearby him, on the crate that was both his dresser and his sofa. His silvery were this bowl, two plates, this spoon was a bit too big for his mouth, and the metal stick he sometimes used to grill the product of his fishing. His tent was his palace. The forest around him was his backyard. His perfect loneliness, his luxury. He adapted to this life easily. Lack of comfort and resourcefulness had this familiarity that years in Hogwarts couldn’t take away. 

The humid wind blew apart the swathes of his coat, freezing his bare chest and naked knees. His muggle clothes were drying out on a rope strung between two branches. A metal basin was dripping against a tree, soap bubbles bursting in the wind. He could go with a wash himself, he realized while running his hand through his hair. He used to bathe in the lake, back in the summer days, after the fishermen were gone. But now October was here, the mornings were crispy and white and the afternoons just tepid enough to freeze the shadows. Snape could fill the basin and heat the water with a charm. He'd do that, eventually. Some day. Some week. Not today, anyway. 

Day-to-day tasks had become difficult. Washing, eating, getting awake, falling asleep. He blamed the roughness of his new life. This was a lie and he knew it. It had started when he was headmaster at Hogwarts. It even had started long before that. But he had chosen this lie, and he’d stick to it.

Home was a place he could choose his own lies. It was the only freedom he had ever asked for.

And he was free now. No more duty, no more students, no more responsibilities, no more spying, fake smiles and even more fake hatreds. It was the dream. It was the selfish, easy life he had dreamt of. He had kept all his promises, he had walked all the miles and now he could go the fuck to sleep. 

The stained mirror suspended to a nearby branch showed his reflection. One cheek was reddened from the bonfire. From the tip of his dirty nails, he scratched his chin. He'd have to shave. It was necessary if he wanted to blend in the muggle supermarket. He was aware he smelled and looked sick, but so were most customers anyway.

He chewed on his beans methodically, taking spoonfuls directly out of the can that was magically floating about the crackling bonfire. With smooth movements of his wrist, he was blowing hot air out of his wand onto his muggle clothes hanging. A pair of jeans with the hem worn out, a greying t-shirt and a warm sweater that was probably ugly. He had found the round mirror in a bin. Not even chipped. When he was a child his mother would keep anything if it could still be of some use. He never understood why people would throw anything out just because they no longer wanted it. He should get it, though. He was still of some use. He was still a powerful wizard with his full capacities. But Dumbledore abandoned him, Voldemort killed him, and when he came back to life, back to his old friends, to the people he had saved, to the society that owed him, no one was waiting for him. No one was missing him enough to hope for his return.

He had heard about his own death in the newspapers. He had tried to laugh. They had found a burned body in the shrieking shack after it went to flames, Potter had blabbed an emotional and inaccurate report of his last moments, and that was enough for everyone. His wand was missing, the body wasn’t identifiable, Fawkes, the only creature with the healing properties to counteract Nagini’s attack, had been spotted flying around, but no one felt compelled to wonder why. They buried him quickly. It had eased things for him. 

A ruffling sound in the trees made him jump on his feet, his wand ready. The wind rushed into his coat and with a modest hand, he tried to cover his underwear. The can of beans fell into the fire and darkened. He knew it was probably just the wind, a rabbit, or a squirrel burying some nuts, but his reflexes didn’t care about probabilities. Survival was cast into the very fibres of his body. Sometimes he wished it was also cast in the fibres of his soul. Nothing more exhausting than a pugnacious body carrying an indifferent soul.

The ruffling sound didn’t happen again. He retrieved the can of beans and burned his hand. He swore out loud and abandoned the rest of his lunch to the flames. He stretched with a groan and rubbed his knees in a gesture far older than him. This damn venom, he still felt it, especially when the weather was cold. He limped to the rope and felt the clothes. The t-shirt was still humid, but the rest was dry and warm, if not soft. That would do it. He shook off the warm coat and put the sweater on his bare chest, shivered, and put on the coat again. He had stolen it the second day of his departure. He had purposely chosen a coat that wasn't black. A few days after he had realized the irony of trying to look as un-snape-y as possible in Slytherin green. 

He put on his socks on his overgrown toenails. He should cut them. He’d do it someday, some week, not today anyway. With a flick of his wand, he extinguished the fire. It was a magical fire, not so warm, with little smoke and no smell, but Snape had grown to care about his belongings and feared the tiniest unwatched fire. He'd hoped such a bare life would sow some kind of detached wiseness in him. This hope didn’t last long. He had grown in poverty, and it never made anyone wiser. Just anxious, just angry, just more aware of what people with a full stomach never deemed important, like a full stomach to begin with. He should know better. It’s like nothing could make him wiser. 

He tossed his bowl near the basin, wrapped a grey scarf around his neck and remembered he was supposed to shave. He sighed. He was feeling way too lazy. Too bad if people stared at him. They’d be staring anyway, despite the scarf, despite the collar up. The red scar on his neck was climbing up to his jaw, pulling on the left corner of his lips in an expression of displeasure that was hard to distinguish from his usual expression.

With a crack he apparated under a roofed parking lot, around forty miles west. It was midday, his hour of choice. It wasn’t as packed with people. He was trying his best to go unnoticed. He even had cut his hair short, without regret neither style. He grew a violent revulsion for the noises, the crude lights, and above all the crowd. The waiting lines made him fidgety and anxious. It wasn’t only because of the stares on his neck or the reflexes of his body that saw enemies everywhere. It wasn't the romantic aversion of the misanthropist either. It was pure anxiety, and he hated to admit this.

He walked slowly through the parking lot, not wanting to reveal the limp weighting his thighs. He tightened the scarf around his neck. A kid stared at him with wide eyes and his mother made him turn his head the other way. 

He entered the supermarket and turned in the well-known aisles, without hesitation or wandering. He always bought the same things. Nutritious food, easy to cook, little waste, and a small pack of liquorice sweets. He liked his routine. He liked to be done with his groceries as quickly as possible.

At the check-out he handed rectangles of blank paper coated with a charm. He knew it was stealing. He didn't care. His charms could last weeks. The paper would become blank again in an unknown wallet. He didn't want the cashiers to get in trouble because of him. His childhood at Spinner End infused him with a class solidarity that survived his wizard life, and was probably strengthened by it. 

He headed his way out, his cane discreetly hitting the ground with a hollow sound. He wished he could move around as graciously as Malfoy but really, he was just limping. Sometimes he wished someone he knew saw him like this and felt bad for him. Sometimes he felt so self-conscious he wished he disappeared of mankind. Mostly he wished he knew what he wanted. Beside liquorice sweets.

He hid behind a van, held his bags tight and apparated back into the woods. It had started to rain here, an insisting little rain that meant to stay. He let down his bag of groceries on the mellow mat of dead leaves at the entrance of his tent. The survival instinct woven into his body threw him behind a tree.

Something wasn’t normal. The empty can of beans has been moved, and cleaned. He was sure he had left it at least half full. The muggle shirt left drying on the rope had disappeared. The mirror was still here, but moved down to a lower branch, with a crushed wet leaf slowly waving under the rain. He could hear noises inside his tent. Quiet noises, decided noises, not an animal rummaging through. There was an intruder. 

He remembered the ruffling sound he heard right before leaving. He swore internally. He had turned too soft on himself. This was what he was earning for it.

He heard the cracking noise of his crate opening. With a supple leap he’s at the back of the tent, he casts a quick sectumsempra, slash open the fabric, and points his wand at a little girl, his pan in her hands, who looked at him unfazed.

« Oh, so you're back. There's a hole in your tent, » she said, pointing where he was standing.

She was maybe ten or eleven, a large and solid trouser smeared with mud up to her knees. Short locks of fiery red hair were stuck on her forehead by the rain.

«The hell are you and what are you doing here?« asked Snape. He looked around. No adult in sight.

« Do you live here? Or are you hiking? You don’t look like you’re having fun. » She looked at his pan, weighing it in her palm. Snape thought she was considering knocking him out with it. That was what he’d do.

But the girl put down the pan and looked around like in a museum. There was very little to look at. The bunk that came from his father and a dozen books at its feet, and under the bed, the strap of his big backpack for the rare occasions he had to move places. Snape realized his missing muggle shirt was clumsily folded on the thick duvet.

« It’s raining,» said the girl, following his eyes. «You shouldn't let your clothes out when it's raining. Mom always tells me to run and get it in. I run very fast. I won the school racing once.« She looked into another empty can of baked beans that Snape had forgot here the day before, and she looked disappointed.

« Get the f... hell out of here, » Snape slid his wand back in his sleeve. He didn't want to use it against the girl. Not that he was above casting a sleeping spell to a child. But he was wary of hidden witnesses. « Where are your parents? » 

« Mom's at work. How did you do that? The crack! Fiushhhhh... »

The girl made a move with her hands like figuring fumes. Snape hid his hand behind his back and outside of the girl's sight, cast a _homenum revelio_. No one around. Just him and the girl for miles around.

« Where the f... hell do you come from? » 

« You can say fuck you know, I'm not a baby.» She found an old bag of stale waffles and smelled it.

«You’re being very rude. Do you ever answer the questions you’re asked?«

She looked at him with hope, holding the bag of waffles. «Can I have the last one?«

He held back a swear. She was waiting with a coy smile, all her posture now exuding politeness. Her stomach rumbled loudly. He observed her. She sure looked like she had walked miles at end into the woods alone. Her shoes looked like they doubled in size with all the mud stuck to it. He recognized these shoes. These large, practical, all-seasons, oversized pairs of shoes, with the laces tightening the ankles so the feet wouldn’t slip out at every step. The shoes a little girl was expected to «grow into« because her parents couldn’t afford to buy a pair very often. He had worn these shoes.

« You can have it, I don’t want it anyway« and the girl beamed. She was missing a canine. She took a large bite of waffle, as big as her mouth could take. «Now, you're going back home, wherever it is. You really shouldn’t talk to adults you don’t know, » said Snape, snatching from her hand the book she had just taken off the floor. A sudden and terrifying thought crossed his mind. « Are you lost? Please tell me you're not lost. I'm not bringing you back home. You’re not my responsibility.»

« I'm not lost.« she said, spitting waffle crumbs. « Are you?»

Snape bent to get inside the tent and piled his deranged books beside his bed. He blinked. « What? »

« Are you lost? You look lost.»

«I live here.»

« Maybe you were going for a walk and lost your way and you decided that the best way to survive was to base your camp here, » whispered the girl with an air of conspiracy. « I know how it is. » She swallowed the last piece of waffle, looked right and left, as for looking for stranger ears. Then, deciding there was no one hiding behind the pan or the pile of books, she lowered her voice to a whisper: «I'm a fugitive. I'm on the run. I'm framed for murder and the government is after me.»

« Tell me about it. Me too.» The words had slipped out of his mouth without his consent. His body was living in milliseconds, ready to jump and fight at the tiniest sound, but his mind had difficulties remembering which year he was. He had forgotten he was no longer wanted for Dumbledore’s murder. Sometimes he wished he still was. He could turn himself in and face an actual trial. Sometimes he wished things had happened this way. 

The girl frowned and with her normal voice: « No you can't. You can't be a fugitive wanted by the government, that's me. You have to find something else. You... » she seemed to think hard. « You're the real murderer and I'm going to arrest you!» His heart pounded stupidly and he stepped back as if the girl was trying to jump on him. But she only shook her head. «No. If I prove my innocence I'll have to go back to school and I don't want that. »

Snape played with his wand in his hand. «Your parents know you’re skipping school?« He could feel the bewitched sleep charm tickling in his fingers. There was a busy road, a few kilometres north. He could cast her asleep, put her down the road and someone would find her quickly. 

«I’m homeschooled.« Her stomach rumbled again and she pressed it. She looked around, probably hoping another bag of waffles would spontaneously materialize.

«Why aren’t you at home, then.»

No. Casting her asleep by the road wasn’t a good idea. It would raise suspicion. There would be people, family, police. Wouldn't be a good time to be a strange man alone in the woods. Better bring her back home and cast a confusion charm, then a sleeping charm. The girl would think she had dreamt.

The girl was still looking around, like he wasn’t there. «I told you, my mom isn’t home yet. She’s my teacher. Why don't you answer? How did you do the… crack! Fiuuuush…. and then you disappeared, and then fiuuuush… crack! You were back again! She looked at him with her canine-less smile. «Can you teach me?

Muggles witnessing magic was never good news. He had to get rid of her. 

«Is it thanks to your stick?» she asked, pointing his wand waving in his hands.

Fine. He had to get rid of her _quickly._

«Where do you live ?» he asked bluntly.

«Mom told me to never tell strangers,« she said with a sing-song voice that made his blood boil. 

«That's rich coming from a girl who breaks into others' homes!»

«Well, I'm on the run, I told you!», she said with a tone of obviousness. «I can't give away my identity like that to people I don't know!» She didn’t dare to touch his stuff anymore, but she was making sure no inch would resist her inspection. She bent over to look under his bunk. She looked especially interested in the books. Maybe she considered them edible.

Snape remembered the stupid way those slow kids brains worked. «My name is Albert McRoy. I live here. You see. I'm no stranger. You know me.»

«I know this trick you know. I told you I'm not a baby.» She cast a disappointed look, like he had just failed an exam.

Snape sighed ostentatiously and rolled his eyes. «Damn, you’re way too clever for me. I’m defeated. You're really mature for your age.» He hoped she didn’t spot the rictus of contempt that twitched his lips despite himself.

She didn’t, because she beamed. Snape could see her defence falling, almost physically. He held back a grunt. He always had felt saddened and annoyed by the endless need of children to find an adult they could trust.

«My mom says so,» said the girl, «she says it’s because I grew up without a dad, but if so I’m happy, I never knew him so I don’t miss him,» and Snape almost disappeared on the spot, terrified at the idea that the girl was hunting father figures in the woods. «My name's Lily. But I won’t tell you my family name. I’m too clever for this. What is this book about? Can I borrow it?» She asked looking through the book he had just snatched out of her hands. «This is written so small. You can read that? How? You don't even have a lamp. How can you see? Are you OK?» She was staring at him, concern on her face. «You look weird.»

Snape forced himself to do something. Move, speak, anything, shaking his body out of the icy feel that was seizing his core. Years of spying have trained his body and face to freeze at the slightest surprise. He had forgotten that for most children, and most people actually, not showing anything was speaking louder than screams.

«Is your name really Lily?» Of course it was. It was a stupid question. The fate that governed his life had a terrible sense of humour.

«Are you deaf?» She frowned over the book, her lips moving slowly. «My name’s Lillian. But I prefer Lily.»

«I'll call you Lillian, if you don't mind,» he sighed. She shook himself back to his senses. He turned around the tent to watch for step prints, keeping an eye on the girl. She couldn't have walked alone all the miles from the nearest civilization in one morning. Her parents might be nearby, there must be a car, at the limit of the _homenum revelio_ spell. He had to stay careful.

She glanced above the book. She had brown eyes, thanks Merlin. «I _do_ mind. I don't like Lillian, this is an old lady name. This is my grandmother's name. What means “bespectacled”?» she asked squinting at the book again.

«Someone who wears glasses, like you should, obviously. Well, _Lillian_ ,» he pretended he didn't see her sticking out her tongue, «since you look like a clever girl, I guess I can teach you to apparate.»

«To... _what_? That’s not a real word.»

«To crack-fiusssh. Which aren’t real words either, by the way. You want to know?»

«Yes?» She almost dropped the book on the ground.

«Then give me a favour. I’ve lost my… hat by the lake. I can’t walk when it’s raining,» he said patting his limping leg with his cane. He hated that it was only half a lie. «If you’re smart enough to find it, I’ll make you my student and teach you.»

He barely finished his sentence that the girl was running out of the tent. «I’m right back!» Her heavy shoes full of mud crushed the leaves with loud thuds. «I’m glad we’re friends!» she shouted above her shoulder. A frightened flock of birds took off. How did she get so silent when approaching him? When had he become so careless?

He waited for the girl to be out of sight, he took his backpack from under the bunk bed, and with a flick of his wand, he packed his stuff, folded his tent, put his backpack on, and disappeared.

He appeared down the edge of a field, hidden by bushes, some twenty miles south. He had spent the summer here, stealing corn from time to time. Now the crops were harvested, but a large river nearby provided fish. That was still a nice hideout.

He didn’t feel bad for abandoning the girl. She had found her way in, she’d find her way out, when her empty stomach would miss her mother’s cooking. She didn’t look like she needed help. Even if she did, she wasn’t his responsibility. He was living his dream life now. He wouldn’t let anyone get in the way. 

He had chosen this recluse life, he wasn’t pushed by any fear, any sadness, any shame that would make him avoid human contact. It was normal to panic in the supermarket, to panic at cashiers, to panic at little girls. It was normal to refuse to talk to anyone, to defend his personal solitude as hard as he defended the wizarding world. It was normal to have nightmares every night, to be harassed by memories of death, to feel that he had lived his entire life and now he just had to wait for death. All of this was normal. He was home, the place he could believe his own lies in peace. 

What keeps a man going? Nothing, no one, except the despicable habit to keep breathing. Nothing, no one, and certainly not love, certainly not the memory of love, or even the hope of love, or a bond, or forgiveness. 

He wasn’t thinking about her. He wasn’t worried about her. The old Snape would worry, but the old Snape died in a shack, alone and forgotten. The new Snape didn’t care about kids’ safety, didn’t care about red-haired Lilys, the new Snape only cared about himself. He had deserved it.

She was a muggle anyway, he thought - or he’d have thought if he was thinking about her, which obviously he wasn’t - wizards had nothing to do in muggle worlds, just as muggles have nothing to do in the wizarding world. This was the belief that put him in the open arms of the Death Eaters, and while he had changed radically most of his views, this one tended to stick in. He knew Dumbledore would have been disappointed if he had known. Maybe he had. Maybe that's why Dumbledore deemed Snape necessary for the war, but expendable for the peace. So he made him the supposed owner of the elder wand and sent him to his death. That was fair. He had been a good spy, he'd never be a good person. He had deserved to die. And he didn’t even do that properly.

It was a good thing that he wasn't thinking about this little girl, and that she didn't need his help. He was a terrible person to be around. 

He put his backpack on the ground of crunchy little leaves, so different from the woods. He put out of the backpack his crate, that was ten times bigger, and sat on it. He rubbed his eyes and sighed deeply. While wizards and muggles would never understand each other, there was one universal thing that bound humanity together: it was always when you came back from the grocery that you realized you forgot something.

Snape didn't feel the energy to face the supermarket again. This unpleasant encounter had drained all the little patience he had. Children tended to do that. He knew a little grocery shop in the nearby village, two fields west, the kind of overpriced shop that sold a bit of everything.

He let his belongings lay in disorder and limped west. His solid shoes crushed the dry remains of corn crops. The little girl should be back now to the place he had left. It wasn’t his problem. A few autumn flowers were peaking through. Cows mooed in the distance and a flight of crows took off from a tree. It wasn’t raining here. He could hang again the t-shirt this girl had kindly folded. He wondered if she had a hood to her coat. It wasn’t his problem. 

He reached the edge of the village and walked through a couple of shadowy streets. He didn’t have to walk long, fortunately. His stiff thighs didn’t enjoy the shortcut through the fields.

The grocery store doubled as a social place. Everyone seemed to gather here a moment or another. The glass doors were covered by handwritten small ads. Mothers looking for babysitters, car sellings, lost dogs, babysitters looking for mothers. Snape put his hand on the handle, peering through two ads, to see if there weren't too many people inside, and if so, if they weren’t old ladies. You never knew with old ladies. They were ready to chat with anyone. 

He couldn’t see clearly in the badly lighted shop. He put the side of his hand on the glass, leaned his forehead, grimacing, trying to avoid the reflection of the sky. He shifted to the left, trying to look through the wider gaps between two ads, and fell nose to nose with a beaming Lillian.

It wasn’t really her, for her smile had all her canines, she was in black and white and she was a photocopy taped on the window. But it was her face, without a doubt, and if he had one the word «Lillian» written in large letters above the picture would be a clue. 

Under the picture was a description. Her height, her age, the colour of her coat and trousers that Snape recognized for the ones she was wearing. Under the description, a little square said she had been seen for the last time in this very village, three days ago. Snape let go off his hand from the glass. It revealed, on top of the sheet, the words «missing child».


	2. Chapter 2

Snape always had a unique talent for blending in and never conforming. He could pass as a pureblood or a muggle depending on the circumstances, and looked strange either way. His unique conflation of chiseled adaptation and natural awkwardness saved his life more than once. No one ever guessed that this man who naturally stood out, who revealed his discomforts and shortcomings despite himself, was actually playing a role to be accepted. Everyone always thought they were watching his true self. No one would willingly pick up such a persona.

This persona had been so requested, used so many times, that it had developed a life of its own. As any fake personality, it needed an audience to perform. When there wasn’t any audience, it was performing for Snape himself. 

This day, as he pushed the glass door of the grocery store, his fake self arose without his consent, or even his knowledge. His persona looked around, and decided that the old lady chatting at the counter and the store owner were a poor audience, with little interest. It decided to ignore them, and perform for its favorite victim.

Snape was browsing the short aisles muttering to himself. “Nope. Not my problem. None of my business.” He took a pack of toilet paper off a shelf. “I’m tired of kids. I hate kids. I wish kids were born at 28.” He passed before the old lady like he hadn’t seen her, slammed the toilet paper on the counter and handed a small, blank rectangle sheet to the grocery owner. He looked at it, then at Snape. 

“Is everything alright, sir?” 

The man’s eyes flickered, trying hard to not look at the scar. Everybody did that. Only the kids weren’t so polite. He hated kids. 

The owner rubbed his nose, trying to breathe through his mouth, insisting: “Do you need help?”

Snape shouted: “Of course not!” and stormed back into the aisles. He came back with waffles and marshmallows that he smashed on the counter with such violence the marshmallows bounced back at him.

“This is for me,” he said with defiance. He handed the same blank rectangle of paper. “I intend to consume it. Myself. An adult man can eat waffles and marshmallows.”

“Absolutely, sir,” said quickly the owner, still breathing through his mouth. “Do you have some trouble with the cash, sir?”

Snape glared at the paper, and groaned like the paper had glared back at him. He mumbled a swear, slid the paper under the fold of his green coat and took it back immediately, except it was now a bill. The cashier took it with caution. 

“This is a perfectly normal bill,” said Snape. The cashier immediately inspected it under the light. “I’m a perfectly normal man. Keep the change,” and he rushed out of the shop, the little bell bouncing so hard it hit the ceiling.

The cashier and the old lady walked to the doors, looking between the ads. The limping silhouette was going east, to the fields, shouting a “not my problem!” so loud they could hear it through the thick glass. Then they heard an even louder “FUCK!”, and the tapping of his cane went back, followed by the swearing man, who walked past the grocery again, turned left into the shadowy streets. He was now out of view, but the old lady thought he had hit something with his cane, because a loud “crack! fiuuuush” echoed to her. It was probably the most exciting thing that had happened here this week.

********************************

The thin rain was soaking his hair and probably his toilet paper. It crackled on the sweets plastic bags. It flashed sparkles of refracted light on Lillian’s hood. The shadows darkened her eyes. The condescending judgment darkened them even more. She was folding her arms, stomping the ground with her oversized shoes.

“Look who’s back”, she articulated carefully. “You were out for a walk? You sure must miss fresh air, living in the woods like that.”

She tilted her hood back to show off her sarcastic eyebrow. Snape was sure she had trained in front of a mirror. 

“I had to run an errand,” said Snape, as if the girl could have missed the huge pack of toilet paper. He shook his head and a drop of rain fell off his nose. “I don’t need to justify myself, you’re in no position to tell me off, you’re a liar and a runaway.”

“A liar? Me?” Lillian’s eyebrows arched to an angle that Snape had only seen on Mcgonagall face. He was almost impressed. “I told you the exact truth. I’m on the run, I told you. Don’t call me a liar just because you didn’t believe me. And you, what are you? I trusted you and when I came back, no one! No tent! Nothing! I trusted you and you dared betray me a poor innocent little girl!” She cleared her throat. “Poor, poor innocent little girl!” she repeated with more intense tremolos. She obviously had rehearsed this tirade and wouldn’t waste her effect.

“Tragic,” whistled Snape, putting his bag of errands on the ground. “I have no time or patience for your foolishness. You’re going back home now.”

“What do you think it is, a hide-and-seek game? Just because you found me doesn’t mean I have to go back. If you don’t want me around, it’s fine. I’m used to it. But you won't make me come back. The government will find me,” she whispered like she was now afraid the trees could hear her. 

Snape rubbed his eyes. Why kids could never understand simple commands. “I’m pretty sure the ‘government’ doesn't look for criminals by plastering posters on groceries. So now young girl if you…”

“A poster? With “WANTED” written on it? “Dead or alive”?” All seriousness seemed to be forgotten and she looked very excited. “Is there a bounty? How much?”

“Just a ‘missing child’, even if I wonder who could miss you. Stop interrupting me. You have to get out of there. You have to go back home. Woods aren’t a place to live for a little girl. I can’t believe I have to say this out loud.”

“Life will be worse if the secret police find me. They pretend they look for runaways but it’s because it’s secret.” Snape sighed with irritation, but the spy in him nodded professionally at how she landed on her feet. “What can be worse, the big bad wolf will find me?” She seemed to be disappointed with her poster.

“Exactly,” The full moon was in four days. Snape never slept on these nights. “Now, you’re gonna tell me where you live, and we’re…”’

“If you make me go back I’ll tell everyone you kidnapped me.”

Such a round face wasn't meant to shelter such a devious smile, but Lillian managed to do it. Snape felt a panic arising, an old habit of constant guilt; but it melted right away, washing out his irritation. He even felt amused. Petty lies and blackmails were his territory. This girl looked too satisfied with herself. She sure was a beginner at this game.

“If you tell anyone I kidnapped you, I’ll tell everyone I brought you back because you never stopped crying and whining and calling for your mommy,” he whispered with his softest voice.

Pure horror widened her brown eyes. “What the fuck, man?” Her voice was just a whisper.

“Language.”

“I… I can say fuck I’m not... a baby.” Her voice lacked the assurance she thought she had. Snape knew he had won.

“Yes you are. Because, now that I think about it,” said Snape scratching his chin, like lost in memories, “you asked for your plushie too. And you wetted your bed.”

Lillian cringed like she had just bit into a lemon. She raised a diplomatic hand: “All right, all right. I wasn’t doing it anyway. I hate lying. You drive a hard bargain, sir” and Snape flashed half a smile that she no longer called him ‘man’. 

It was the moment. He took his cane in both his hands, straightened his back, and made himself taller. “Glad we agree, young lady. Now, you’re going back home. Right now.” His low, silky voice he used at Hogwarts slithered out of his lips effortlessly. He could feel the shadows around him becoming darker, the rain pouring harder. Even the sky seemed menacing. “No discussion.”

“Yeah? And who’s gonna make me?” scoffed Lillian. “You think you can force me? I’m doing karate,” and in a jump, she stroked a combative pose.

The shock left Snape speechless. His posture shrank, the sky cleared again and the shadows were actually always that cold. He looked at this little girl waving unsteady karate moves like he wasn't there. It felt like he had slipped into a parallel universe. A vivid dream where everything seemed normal until his socks started talking.

Respect was a hard tool to obtain, but once you had it, you had everything. Snape forced respect at Hogwarts, and used it to instill fear, obedience, and discipline. He had faced cheeky answers and reluctance, but never this casual indifference. He never let anyone the chance to ignore him.

With a cold terror, he leaned under the realization he had no authority on her. He couldn’t threaten her with detention or house points. He couldn’t tell her to go in her office. He couldn’t send an owl to her parents. 

He had no idea how to talk to a child who wasn’t a student. He had no idea how to be an adult without being a teacher.

He had hated teaching, but he had liked being a teacher. Everything was simple. There were students, employees, and a hierarchy. Everything had a specific code of interaction and addressing. He had always felt comfortable around McGonagall. Beyond the similarities in their personalities, she was the vice headmaster. There was a limit to their friendship that he never risked to cross by accident. All was clear, routed, and written down.

In these naked woods, he had no status, no rank, no position. He had no audience to play a role to, and no one to impress. His little tricks gave poor and volatile impressions. He couldn’t rely on any persona he knew. He was just himself, at his most simple form, and he hated this.

Lillian had started to kick bushes and trunks around, spraying raindrops everywhere, shouting some “yaha!” and “kya!” that she probably heard on movies. Dumbledore would have found this charming. Dumbledore would know what to do. But thinking about Dumbledore coated his thoughts with a bitter taste, and he knew he couldn’t resist sucking on it like a poison. 

He turned his thoughts towards Hagrid. Hagrid who never fully believed he was a traitor. It was a safer place to be.

“Lillian…” he started, but it was like she had forgotten his presence. She was attacking a couple of hazel trees, waving her arms like a semaphore.

“Yaha! I’m Bruce Lily! Kya!” She shook the thin trunks and water dropped right on her head.

“Lillian, stop fooling around and…” He sighed. It wasn’t like Hagrid at all. “Do you want waffles?”

She stopped dead and in a leap she was right in front of him. “Maybe?” she said, her brilliant eyes screaming “yes.” 

That was a good start. Hagrid always gave food and a hot drink to the kids. He didn’t have tea. He didn’t even have a chamomile. But he drew a waffle out of the package and waved it above the girl’s head, out of her reach.

“Who’s a good girl…” he whispered. He finally had all her attention. It wasn’t the one he hoped for.

Because she was actually staring at him suspiciously. “What do you think I am, a dog? You think I'm gonna do some trick? Give me waffles or don’t but don’t put this bullshit on me.”

“Language,” corrected Snape out of habit. He just tossed the pastry at her and she grabbed it mid-air. He had always seen Hagrid taking care of animals, and had always assumed he considered children like talking pets. He couldn’t fathom how he’d find kids so endearing otherwise.

He rubbed his eyes. This couldn’t work out. Hagrid never tried to fool kids. He was naturally caring, and kind, with an open heart and open mouth. He never had any hidden motive. That was why children trusted him. Hagrid was everything Snape will never be. People were loveable or they were not, and nothing they could do or say could change this. People were blessed or cursed at birth. He had learned this long ago.

McGonagall would know what to do, but she was a difficult place to be too. Every time he thought about her, it wasn’t the gossip, the cups of tea, the amusing banter and their ridiculous bets, that came back into his mind. It was the end of her wand pointed at him. 

Not that he resented her. She was acting according to his plan. But she would resent herself. She might think about this every day. He had left behind a grave where he buried her only occasion to apologize. The pain of hurting a friend and never receiving their forgiveness was a pain he knew too well.

“Let’s… let’s hunt mushrooms?” he sputtered. That was what Pomona would do. Pomona was a neutral place to be. She was a colleague, and a head of house like him, so he never bonded with her. He never figured out how to. “There are plenty around the lake.” 

Lillian dropped the branch she was waving like a katana: “I want a snun.”

“A what?” asked Snape. “I don’t care. Just let’s… let’s go.” He sighed. He wished he was rid of the girl quickly. Being himself, trying to find out who he was supposed to be, was too much work. 

“Snun,” articulated Lillian like he was deaf. She was now pacing the glade with large cautious steps, looking at the ground, like a heron chasing frogs. “A snail gun. Snun. You know why they call this “mushroom hunting”, right? And not “picking”? Because mushrooms are actually the eyes of giant underground snails. If you don’t pluck their eyes fast enough, GNAP!” she shouted, jumping on her two feet. “They get out of the dirt and they eat you! I read it in my uncle’s books, and he’s a doctor, he knows things. What would you do if you met eye-to-slime and you don’t have a snun?”

Snape rolled his eyes and looked up at the sky. He spotted a sparrow trilling and hoped it was him. No words, no sentences, not the extenuating effort to communicate with one another, just whistling angry rants all day. Why life couldn’t be like this.

“If I find one, I’ll push you into its maw and run.”

It stopped Lily in her attempt to chop down an oak with the side of her hand. She looked at him with an expression that Snape, to his horror, understood as admiration.

“I like how you think,” she whispered. “Deal. Let’s go to the lake!” she shouted, running between the trees. “Let’s diiiiiiiiiie!”

Snape looked at her back disappearing into the shadows, karate-ing her way into the already visible path. 

He wasn’t Dumbledore, he thought as he headed through the woods. He wasn’t Hagrid, he thought as the darkness surrounded him. He wasn’t McGonagall. He wasn’t Pomona. Thanks Merlin he wasn’t his father. He wasn’t sure who he was. He always had been a catalysis for someone’s else will. 

He didn’t know where he belonged, who he was, some days he didn’t even felt like he existed, but if he was the gap between all the people he wasn’t, if he was only a trompe-l’oeil silhouette formed by others’ shapes, then he will stand here, seize this place, and give it his name. He had no choice.

He emerged from the shadows into the sudden wall of light near the lake. The thin clouds had started to fray and a ray of sun bounced on the lake.

Lily was playing by the shore, trying to catch a frog. She bent over into the reeds and took out a shapeless piece of fabric that she waved at him: “I found your hat!” She tossed at him the wet wool and he dropped with disgust. It was a shapeless brown piece of fabric that looked strangely familiar.

He poked it with a stick. It was a wizard hat. There was no doubt about it. It wasn’t even the embarrassing fashion that wizards wore when they tried to pass as muggles. 

Snape looked around. His mind was tired and didn’t care if it was a stranger or an old friend, a passerby of a death eater. His body took over, and his legs moved against his will to get closer to the little girl, his wand already tickling his fingertips, ready to fight for his life and hers. Lillian still fooled around, unconscious of the danger.

“I found your hat, so I’m your student now, right?”

“What are you talking about?” he said abruptly. He wished she could shut up. His senses were tensed to the extreme, his mind too exhausted for any patience.

“You told me earlier. I found a hat, it means I’m clever so I’m your student no. That’s obviously not yours but it’s still working right?” With her stork gait, she walked around, and he followed her closely. “Can I ask now? Can I ask you the question? Students can ask questions.”

He was about to answer _“I’m the one who asks questions”_ , but it was a sentence teacher Snape would say, not him. His nerves focused on another subject, indifferent to the conversation. He distractingly asked back: “What question?”

“Did you forgive the person who tried to kill you?”

The question slapped him into his immediate reality, startling him like under an attack. Lillian was pointing to his scar. Out of reflex Snape rose his scarf higher, covering his jaw. 

“What are you talking about?” He definitely was the one who asked questions, after all, like he never had any answer to anything. He was expecting an attack, but it didn’t come from where he thought.

“Your scar, it looks bad. And it’s not a surgery scar, my uncle showed me and it doesn’t look like this. It’s on your… ju... _jawgular_ ,” she stuttered. “This is where you attack when you want to kill someone, I read it in a book.” She played with a wooden bracelet at her wrist, in a nervous and probably unconscious move. “Did you forgive them? Do you think you can forgive people who do that?”

She was looking straight into his eyes. Snape didn’t remember for how long he had been looked at like this. For the past years, all he saw was eyes lowered to the ground, or glances blurred with anger, hate or despise. This frank, expecting gaze was even worse. There wasn’t any fear in these eyes, but this eagerness, this desperation, reminded him of Charity Burbage, a minute before she died.

This open look, the unexpected question, the pressure of the hated memory on a corner of his mind, the danger he felt around them both, dictated what he had to do. It was no longer time for bargaining and convincing and discussing. It wasn’t him. Severus Snape wasn’t a decent man who helped people. He was an asshole who saved them.

He had to bring this girl back home immediately, and he knew how to.

It was easy to cast a legilimens spell onto a muggle. They were never prepared for it, and always thought they were suddenly thinking about old and half-forgotten memories. It was even easier to cast it onto a child. They typically had fewer memories to search through, and they were vivid, clear and bright.

So Snape was surprised to suddenly stand in a dark room, dimly lit by ribbons of sun filtering through the blinds.

It was a small library. Snape could hear people talking in the next room. He looked at the shelves. Books about tropical diseases, vaccines, medicinal herbs, anatomy, history of medicine. Vinyles disks. The Beatles, for the most part. Science fiction books, too. He recognized some covers he used to read as a teen. A book had been taken off the shelf and neglectfully abandoned on a desk. The cover showed giant snails firing lasers with their eyes. 

At the desk, Lily was leaning over a thick and large book. She was tilting the pages under the cheap light. She was throwing nervous glances at the door. She obviously didn’t have the right to read what she was reading. 

Snape walked behind her and read above her shoulder. The top of the pages read “encyclopedia of mental illnesses”. She was reading a paragraph about hallucinations. She tried to say out loud “schizophrenia” and failed. 

“Lily? have you found the book you wanted?”

A feminine voice came by the other side of the door. Lillian startled, shouted a panicked “yes mom” and grabbed the book about the giant snails.

She opened the door at the moment Snape could hear the same calm, tired voice. “Come downstairs honey. Uncle Walt wants to give you something else,” and the memory merged into another one.

He was now standing in a darker, smaller room. He smelled dust and a musty humidity. Lillian was hiding behind the door, peering through the crack. A short, brown-haired lady was turned to the wall. He couldn’t see her face, but he could hear her weeping. 

Cardboards and bags were lying in disorder on the disjointed hardwood floor. Old newspapers ripped around dishes, vases and trinkets. An old sofa was pushed askew in the middle of the room, the book about giant snails open against a cushion. It was dimly lit by a bedside lamp on the floor. 

By the window the orange clouds reflected the last sunset rays. The faded moon was growing into its first quarter. The window opened on a small village place, and on the other side, Snape recognized the storefront of the grocery shop he was standing in barely half an hour ago.

Fine. Now he knew where she was living. It was the matter of an apparating, a fifteen minutes walk through the fields, and a confusion charm. He’d ring at the door and walk away. Easy. He’d be rid of her in a matter of minutes.

“It’s becoming too dangerous, Walter…” the lady suddenly said, and Snape startled. He hadn’t realized she was on the phone. “It’s happening again… Yes, this morning…” Snape recognized the tired voice that Lillian had called “mom” in the previous memory. “How did they find us so quickly, we had moved in yesterday… They’re after her, they’re after us... I don’t know what they’re gonna do if they catch her… I don’t want her to be locked in, she’s so young... I don’t know, I have no idea, you’re the only person who knows where we’re hiding now and… No, no of course I’m not accusing you, you’re my brother and I trust you… I wish…” and her voice cracked, “I wish we could just disappear… to never reappear again…”

The lady cried louder, and Lilian made a move behind the door, biting her lips. She looked like she was balancing between comforting her mother or being an obedient kid who doesn’t interrupt adults.

Of course she chose to disobey and pushed the door open. At the second she put a foot on the darkening living room, the mother said “All of this because of this stupid story with Seweryn… If only nothing of this ever happened… We’d be so much happier… Please Walter, I can’t take it anymore, can you… can you take Lily with you? Can you take her away?”

Lilian froze, and gaped, like looking for air. She stepped back silently, and shut the door.

The mother startled, and turned around, with pure terror in her eyes. “Who is there? Who…” She had dark circles under her eyes and freckles like her daughter. “No, it’s… it’s nothing Walter,” she said on the phone. “Probably just the wind. This old house is full of drafts… but it’s all we can afford.”

The memory blurred, and Snape walked through the immaterial walls into Lilian’s bedroom. It was just a mattress on the floor, an unmounted bed frame and a closet in a corner. Lillian was packing, taking clothes from a luggage into her backpack. She was wearing the thick trousers, barely recognizable without the mud. She held her heavy shoes in her hands. She opened the window, threw her shoes outside, blew a kiss to her plushies, blew a kiss to her mother by the other side of the wall, and she disappeared into the night.

Snape was a skilled legilimens. Only experienced occlumenses could stop his mental attacks. Nevertheless, as the memory faded, he felt a resistance. Lillian’s mind became thick and cloudy. He wasn’t quitting her mind. She was protecting it. At the moment Snape decided to let go of it, he felt a memory twirling behind a wall of denial and repression. He had felt that before. Here was standing a memory so horrendous, so atrocious, that the little girl was fighting with all her mental strength to hide it from herself.

An instinct polished by years of spying made him look closer to it. He pushed on the girl’s mental resistance gently.

Opening her memory like a heavy door, first he only heard voices. Lillian’s voice, her laughter, and another little girl voice. Stains of light and colors danced before his eyes, like the first hints of paint on a blank canvas.

“Look Eryn,” was saying Lillian’s voice. “My tooth is moving.”

The stains of light and color gathered, merged and gained definition, to form the shape of Lillian, mouth open, moving her upper canine with her fingertip.

“Yikes!” said another juvenile voice, coming from a mist of greens and black. “Disgusting! Do it again.”

The rest of the room was a fog of bright colors. Patches of pink, purple and tender green. There was a plushie at Lillian’s feet, and the scattered chips of a Connect 4 game. These ones were clear. Lillian was only protecting herself from the memory of the other black-haired girl.

“Yikes! Disgusting! Do it again.”

Snape pushed the memory further. The mist cleared, the colors became more compact, revealing a bed, a large closet, a cutesy little girl bedroom. A summer sun was flowing through lace pink bows at lace pink curtains. A rainbow unicorn figurine on a shelf was rolling mad eyes. It wasn’t Lillian’s previous bedroom. She’d have a nightmare sleeping in the middle of so much cuteness. It was likely the black-haired girl’s.

“Yikes! Disgusting! Do it again.”

Snape had heard about the phenomenon. The memory was repeating an innocent scene over and over again, to avoid suffering to its host. He had struggled with it when it was time to pour his worst memories into the Pensieve.

“Look Eryn, my tooth is moving.”

This past Lillian was stuck in an eternal loop for maybe two months, no more. The baby canine had fallen but Snape hadn’t seen any tip of any adult tooth to replace it. This memory was not so old, and yet, it felt heavy. Snape had only felt this impression within adults.

Snape understood he’d never see the said Eryn’s face. Lillian had surrounded her with all the protection she could find. He could break through, of course. He’d have broken through without hesitation, without a thought for the harm done, if he had been on a mission asked by another authority. But now that he was his own authority, he realized he didn’t want to do that. He felt a repulsion at the idea of harming the girl more than necessary. The spy and teacher in him were outraged, called him stupid, sentimental and illogical, but he wasn’t one or the other now. 

Maybe his place was not only in the gap between who he was not, but also in the gap between the men he had been forced to be.

He focused on Lillian, moving her canine. He focused on her brown eyes that showed nothing but amusement. He pushed gently, softly, like carrying a bird. He wouldn’t touch the black-haired girl shape if Lily didn’t want to. 

The bedroom became whiter, more blurry, the furniture and toys vanished in an opaque fog, but Lillian, at the center of it, was still moving her canine. He pushed further. Lillian now seemed to stand in nothingness, still moving her canine, and Eryn’s voice seemed to come from very far, from another moment in time, forcibly held onto this scene.

“I don’t wanna talk to you anymore. I no longer want to play with you. You always break everything. I hate you.”

Lillian was still moving her canine, like a broken doll, like an automat, and her voice filtered right through the mist of nothingness around her.

“Shut up! Shut up! I don’t wanna hear you!”

Her voice expressed more distress than anger. It was impossible, looking at the girl toying her tooth with a disgusted delight, to imagine she would say these words, feel this way, barely a couple of minutes later.

A patch of red stained the pastel mist, growing in a puddle. The green and black shapes that formed her friend Eryn were lying on the floor. The red liquid form seemed to leak from her. A scream of pain and terror ripped apart the silence. The happy Lillian vanished. Now she was standing idly, her eyes full of horror. Her quivering lips stuttered “Sorry… I’m sorry... I didn’t want to…” Her weak arms were hanging by her sides, in her hand a knife covered in blood. 

Snape felt the resistance crystallizing around him again. The knife, the blood, the body vanished in the bright patches of pink and purple and tender green. There were no more yellings, no more screams, just the whistles of birds outside and the voices full of joy of two little girls.

“Look Eryn, my tooth is moving!”

“Yikes! Disgusting! Do it again.”

Slowly, like politely, he stepped back, closed the heavy door of her past, and quitted her mind. 

He blinked under the reflection of the sun onto the lake. A flock of geese going south took off noisily.

Lily had lost her combative energy. Her eyes had lost their eagerness. They seemed full of pastel mist, and shapeless colors.

“So you never lie, right?” asked Snape.

Her fingers twitched nervously, playing with the wooden bracelet at her wrist. She looked around on the ground, picked up a large rock, and threw it in the lake with more violence than necessary. She looked at the rings of water waving and fading. She picked another rock. 

“I never lie,’ she confirmed, throwing the other rock. She seemed to be trying to make as much noise as possible. Snape looked around, checking if it wasn’t attracting any unwanted visitor. “No one ever believes me anyway. So why bother.” 

“I believe you now.”

Lillian froze, her fist around a rock up the air. “You changed your mind? Just like that? Like… you trust me?”

“No. It’s not my style. I can’t tell you why or how, but I know you’re telling the truth.” Ducks landed on the lake, breaking the rings of water where Lillian had thrown the rock. “You’re a runaway, a fugitive and you’re wanted for attempted murder. Nice to meet you. My name is Severus Snape, I’m a master of lies and I’m going to save you.”

  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

"Then the heat pushes the bonfire sparks up into the sky,” said Lillian, her mouth full of waffles, “this is called convection, my uncle told me, and the sparks go up, up and up until they reach space, but space is really cold so there is no convection anymore, so the sparks stay here, and this is how you have stars. Shooting stars happen when aliens have an intergalactic war, the sparks are too heavy and fall to earth, did you know that?”

“Of course I knew that,” said Snape, stretching a slimy hot marshmallow between his fingers. “That’s common knowledge.”

Their shadows were stretching low and far onto the naked fields around them, dancing under the whims of the crackling bonfire. The torn fabric of the sliced tent was flapping under a wind already fresh from the night to come. Snape shivered, rose his collar and came closer to the fire, warming his sore legs. Lillian was sat crossed legs on a mat of dead leaves on the ground. She was holding between her ankles a stick picked with marshmallows. She didn’t look like she was suffering from the cold.

"Ok I explained how stars work, so now it's your turn to explain your thing" declared Lillian, picking brown marshmallows from her stick and putting them onto her waffle. "How do you do the 'crack! fiiuuushh' thing?"

"I just showed you." The sticky pink matter was stuck under his nails. He didn't know how Lillian did to pick them up without getting her finger dirty. Even this simple action, he was unable to do it right. "This is how we got there."

He didn't tell her that he chose to apparate here because it was a safer place. He wanted to be out of the woods, far from the lake. The wizard hat Lillian had found meant no good to him. It was a strange coincidence, and Snape had learned that coincidences never played in his favor.

He looked up the sky. The plumpy clouds were tainted with a fiery orange by the last rays of the sunset. They looked like whales that had eaten all the sparks in the world. 

A barn owl crossed the sky low above their head, despite the early hour. Lillian curled upon herself, pressing her waffle onto her chest.

“You don’t look like a mouse,” said Snape poking the fire. “Or even a rabbit. I don’t think it’s even interested in this disgusting thing that you somehow call your meal,” he added pointing her snack. She had put a toasted marshmallow in each square of her waffle.

“Everyone knows owls are bad omens,” said Lillian, getting straight again. Her sweater was dirty with pink sugar and Snape felt a petty satisfaction. “This is true. Every time I see one, I receive bad news. They’re always around me lately.”

“Maybe they are secret agents of the government,” and she stuck her tongue at him, covered with sugar. The teacher in him took over once again. “What you just talked about is only foolish superstition, spread by foolish people. Owls are useful animals. Their bad reputation comes from their semblance with ghosts.”

“Ho I’m not afraid of ghosts,” she said licking her lips. She only spread sugar all around. “I like ghosts. My previous house was haunted.”

“Ghosts don’t exist,” he said with his teacher voice. It was a lie of course, but it was a lie that was supposed to be told to muggles. He wasn’t about to debate her. He wasn’t surprised she believed in ghosts. She already believed in giant underground snails, and she believed him right away when he had explained he had to grab her arm to teleport her elsewhere.

He didn’t like performing magic on her, but it was a case of emergency. He refrained from showing too much, less in fear of breaking the wizard secrecy, and more to avoid annoying questions. It had been difficult to set the tent without the help of magic, and even more difficult to light the bonfire, but Lillian had showed a surprising and welcomed talent for this. Snape guessed she was the kind of girl who enjoyed setting things on fire in general.

Snape had tried to act like a responsible adult. He proposed her nourishing food with at least a green. He gave up quickly. Lillian’s taste for waffles exceeded his will to fight. She had looked at him with this puppy-like gaze, very still and polite, like when she had first asked for the last waffle. It was too much to bear. He let her swallow a cup of instant soup then stuff herself with waffles and marshmallows, offering him unprecedented lessons about the human stomach and astrophysics.

"I know what you have in mind," said Lillian, mindlessly dressing another waffle. "You're gonna lay my suspicion with waffle, you’re gonna make me talk, I’ll tell you my address, then you’ll tell me 'ho dear Lily, you're such an adorable girl, of course I'm gonna teach you how to crack fiush”, you're gonna grab my arm again and teleport me back home. Don't think I don't recognize the place." She pointed her stick to the east, where the night had already swallowed the village. Her movement has been so quick that the top marshmallow flew onto the field. "It's my vil... my mom's village by there. You know I live here, you saw the poster. You just don’t know the house."

Snape shook his hand. The corn leaf full of marshmallow finally quitted his nails. Now it was stuck to his thumb. "I'll never do that."

"Ho really?" said Lillian, with an adult, sarcastic voice tone that she sure borrowed to someone else. 

"Indeed. I'll never call you 'an adorable girl'. Or 'Lily' for that matters. That was quite a good idea, I have to admit. I'm surprised I didn't have it myself. You'd make a good bad person." Snape rubbed his hands. The pink sweet paste was now on his wrist.

"You make the weirdest compliments."

"What's weird is that I meant it as a compliment."

Snape had tried the last 18 years of his life to be a good person, and had been bad at it. He didn't have the background or the training. When he was young, being a good person was the last of his priorities. He was a nobody, he was aware of it and working hard to change it. He wanted to matter. He wanted to succeed. He wanted to be someone. What type of someone was irrelevant.

He never understood Petunia. Petunia wanted to be unique. It was her revenge for not being an only child anymore. Even though she was older than him, Severus knew she was only naive. He had been unique. The only child of his mother, the only wizard of the neighborhood, and later the only half-blood in Slytherin. It was boring, confusing and lonely. No, being unique had no worth. Only being important worthed it.

It had been so easy to switch sides and join Dumbledore. Snape had sacrificed his safety, his sense of security and most of his dreams to the cause, but he was important. He was someone. And too bad if it had been another person who had decided what kind of someone he had to be. 

He started to practice goodness like a music instrument or a foreign language. It has been difficult at first. He was constantly under pressure, would snap at the slightest inconvenience, and was disappointed he wasn't receiving the recognition he thought he deserved. He had to remember everyday that because of him, Lily was living in fear, prisoner of her own life - a bit like him. It gave him the motivation to learn the vocabulary of goodness. Do not say slurs. Do not mock Squibs. Be polite. Do not smoke in public spaces. Help your students way to success. Only be mean to people who deserve it. Do your job even if no one will thank you. This is not about you. 

He didn't have the fluency in goodness like Dumbledore. Dumbledore could invent his goodness as it went. Snape could only repeat the goodness he saw in others, and didn’t see much. He could only gather little victories like pebbles on his way, and make a collection. He sometimes wondered how high the pebbles pile had to be. It didn’t bother him much. He felt patient. He had the time. Lily was safe. Her child will grow up, he'll collect pebbles, and one day, when he'll have enough of them, he'll show them to Lily. If she forgave him, it meant the pile would be high enough. He’d finally be a good person.

But Lily died, the pile of pebbles crumbled, and he realized how childish he had been, to think any good action would make up for a bad one. All he had in his hands now was his fault, his sins, and his suffering. He had killed the only goodness in him, this goodness that lived in someone else, because n goodness could survive in him. Good actions were like wistful wishes in the wind. Bad ones were like stains. Nothing could wash him off of what he did. His mistakes, errors, bad temper and poor judgments, weren’t accidents. They were his core, his very nature. He was no longer a nobody; but he was still no one. How could he be a good person, when he barely was a person at all.

He started to look into his own abyss, but the abyss didn't look back. It had nowhere to look at. Snape didn't exist. 

Suicide had been a logical solution to him. He already didn't exist. He was empty, and nature hates emptiness. 

Dumbledore made him understand that he didn't have to be good as long as he was useful. Snape wasn’t a person, Dumbledore always knew this, and always treated him as such. But he could be a good tool. It was the only goodness he could pretend to.

It seemed logical to him. Everything seemed logical when Dumbledore explained it, with his calm voice, his poised manners, and his fluency in goodness. Life around Snape was a blur, a void taking Lily’s shape, and nothing made sense, until Dumbledore explained it to him. Dumbledore said Snape wasn't allowed to cry so Snape stopped crying. He said Snape wasn’t allowed to die so he didn’t. He said Snape wasn’t allowed to take a break. He said Snape wasn’t allowed to visit Lily’s grave. It made sense at the moment Dumbledore said all of this, even if when he was on his own, Snape couldn’t remember how.

He tried to turn himself into a tool, into an object, but his evil core was still living. This evil core was angry, this evil core was snarky, this evil said: you're worth better than that. You're worth better than being a pawn. You're worth better than pushing yourself to your limits for someone else’s rewards. You're worth better than being held to impossible standards. Your intelligence is worth better than teaching to dunderheads. Your life worth better than being put in the line with no consideration. This is not normal. You deserve to live as much as anyone. People would stand for you. You should stand for yourself.

Sometimes this evil core would take over, it would shatter the cold metal that he cast himself in, and its anger would rush at Dumbledore, would call him names, would throw furniture and break things in his office. He would feel shameful afterward, and Dumbledore, with his good voice, his good heart, his good morals, would explain to him. No Severus, you're not worth better. Your only worth lies in being my tool, Severus. Do not rebel against me, Severus. You know you're bad inside. You know I'm the only barrier between you and your evilness. You know you have to work on yourself, because your true self is unacceptable. You know you need me Severus. Lily was the only person who really knew you, and she hated you. You know I'm the only person who can forgive you.

And he'd forgive, this good Dumbledore, with his good voice, his good heart and good morals, he'd forgive him, but somehow, it never felt like forgiveness. It never felt like he thought it would have felt like, if he had shown his pile of pebbles to Lily. The more Dumbledore forgave him, the more guilty he felt.

And his evil core was still burning inside, like a bonfire, pushing up into the sky sparks that never turned into any star.

"I have no idea how to help people."

The confession came out of nowhere, or from deep down his own abyss that he never dared to look at once more. 

"I have saved so many people," he went on. He didn't care if Lillian was listening or not. "I have saved people. I have let people down. But I never helped anyone. I never intervene in someone's life to make it better. Just... I allowed it to continue." He thought about Draco Malfoy. "If their life was hell, it was still hell. If it was good, it didn't become better. Only good people can help other people. Useful people only keep them alive." 

He had accepted to cast the Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa Malfoy on an impulse that had been hard to explain to Dumbledore afterward. It had been hard to explain to himself. Maybe he wanted to help someone for no reason. He didn't even want to help Draco, he wanted to help Narcissa. He just wanted her to stop feeling so sad. It had felt nice, at the moment, to see her stop crying, and smile, no matter how trembling this smile was. On this second, his life made sense. He could see, watch, feel that he was doing right - and it didn't matter that he was helping the other side. He was helping someone, he was comforting a mother's heart, and mother's hearts had no sides.

"You're such a drama queen," said Lillian, after she took her last bite of waffle.

The comment shook Snape out of his thoughts. "Excuse me?"

"It's nice to keep people alive," she went on. "That's what my uncle does. He's a doctor, he keeps people alive. That's a nice job."

"It wasn't my job. It was my duty."

"That's still nice. What do you complain about? Not making people's life even better? Damn, it's already good to not ruin anyone's life."

"I do that, too. I'm a man of many talents."

"I'd like to save someone's life," said Lillian dreamingly. "I'd like this... that would... that would even things out." She looked lost on her thoughts for a second. "Do you know how to swim? Do you want to draw in the lake? I'd save you."

"I know how to swim, and it wouldn't change anything. Trust me. If you did wrong, the wrong stays. Forever. You can only try to move on and do better than that."

“How do you know?” she said angrily. “There must be a way.”

“I know it because I’ve been there.”

Her eyebrow rose again, and she leaned over the fire to be sure he wouldn’t miss it. The fire seemed to bend under her to leave her space. “You tried to kill your best friend?”

“I killed two of my friends. They’re both dead. For one I didn’t mean to, but it doesn’t change anything.”

Lillian went back to the shadow. “Ok you win.” She didn’t look even shocked, or surprised, like she hadn’t shown any shock or surprise when he sliced open the tent, or when he apparated with her. She was accepting his magic, his murders, like she accepted giant murderous snails, like she accepted the idea to be pursued by the government. “I’m not even sure mine he’s dead.” She patted around her, looking for the waffles. Her voice and posture looked casual. She was expecting the same acceptance from him. She wasn’t fearing any judgment or rejection.

Snape suddenly felt a burning surge of protective feelings. A girl like this had no defense against this world. She was too open, too genuine, too trusting. She wouldn’t have resisted the war one day.

“Why don’t you go to her to check? You don’t care if they’re dead or not? How careless can you be?” He knew he was being aggressive, and he knew it was only to shake off these uncomfortable feelings.

“I’m not allowed. It’s forbidden to see her family or go near her house. Restrictive order, my mom explained to me. She knows these things” she muttered.

_ Restrictive _ was also the word Dumbledore had used to call his interactions with the rest of the Order. He wasn’t allowed to talk to Lily, to tell her he had changed, to tell her he was sorry.

When Dumbledore told him Lily was dead, he had a blessed minute when he didn’t believe him. It was impossible. He had a huge pile of goodness pebbles to show her. She couldn’t be dead now. Without the newspapers, without the general joy of the population that celebrated Voldemort apparent death, he’d stayed in denial for even longer. He even had some days when it rushed back at him, especially when Dumbledore forbid him to visit her grave. He had days when he thought she was alive, and Dumbledore was hiding her. These days filled him with a nervous energy, that was almost as destructive as the depression and suicidal temptations.

Snape understood that Lillian’s friend was likely dead, but she was holding on her hope, her denial, to not fall into desperation. He could understand that.

“That’s probably for the best,” he said. She had all the time of the world to be confronted with desperation, like he did. She wasn’t ready yet. This honesty, this trusting nature were weaknesses. She had to get rid of this first.

"That's sad. that's unfair,” muttered Lillian.

"Life is unfair." This girl had to understand. She had to toughen up. The world wouldn’t be a sweet on her as she was sweet on it.

“Only people are unfair,” claimed Lillian. It was probably her uncle who told her this. he was too young to have her own opinions yet. She was at the mercy of manipulative people, like he had been.

“That’s people who make life.” He had understood this at Hogwarts. That’s people who make life a hell. She had to learn this too, to learn it the easy way, before she learned it the hard one.

“Why do you live all alone, then? You no longer want life?” This direct, piercing gaze into his eyes again.

“What is this question? What are you trying to make me say?” He reacted like a spy, like he was being interrogated. He knew it was ridiculous but he couldn’t help it. “Why do  _ you _ live alone, then?” He wasn’t interested in the answer. But returning the question was an easy technique to get out of an unwanted conversation.

“I didn’t know that,’ she said shrugging. “I’m only eleven. How am I supposed to know all these things? Aren’t you supposed to teach me? You’re an adult. You went through this. Aren’t you supposed to tell me everything will go all right? Aren't you supposed to comfort me or something?”

"I thought you hated lies." He was already trying to teach her, but she didn’t look receptive to the lesson.

"You're not sounding like you're telling the truth,” she said shaking her head. “You only look bitter and sad. You only want me to be bitter and sad like you." She pointed an accusing finger at him. The movement was too deliberate to be spontaneous. He guessed she was only imitating her teachers.

“I save you time.”

“You sure save a lot of things,” she said sarcastically.

She played with her bracelet again. It was a bracelet of wooden beads, and she was rubbing the end between her thumb and her index. Snape suspected it was a genuine, nervous move, unlike the eyebrow or her sarcastic voice, that she was working on consciously. 

This is how it started, Snape suddenly remembered. When he was a kid he used to have a bouncy gait, he used to play with his hair, he used to make weird noises when he couldn’t find a word. He never grew out of it. He never became the adult this teenager was meant to be. He worked on being someone else, someone appropriate, someone useful, instead of someone genuine. The kid he used to be still lived inside him, waiting to grow inside this empty shell he had become. 

Lillian was working on a persona that nothing could touch. She was growing some sarcasm over her straightforward personality. She was trying to nail some irony to her honesty. She was trying to change herself, to change into a person nothing would touch. She was curling in a ball, she was making space between her and the world, she was disappearing. She was becoming like him.

And this is at the right moment, trying to toast a marshmallow just to keep his hands busy, that Severus Snape realized he was miserable. That was a strange way for such a breakthrough. He was in the same position this morning, warming over a fire something to eat that he didn’t even want. This morning he was feeling content with his life, with his way to think and feel, with what he called freedom, and his carefully selected lies. But now it was like a cloud had torn apart, and revealed the light, and the grey shadows that he thought was covering the entire world was only surrounding himself. And in the new light, he could see this little girl playing with the same piece of cloud, a piece of shadow, petting it like a gentle animal, like a companion, unconscious it was a beast that would devour her entirely.

He looked at her and couldn't believe he had been that young, that small, that ignorant. He must have been. Every kid he ever had seen was exactly like this, and he had seen a lot. It was the normal state of thing. Lillian wasn't too weak, too open or too honest, she was only herself. Kids shouldn't have to bend into other shapes just to survive the world that they had been thrown into. They should have to be shielding themselves. They should be shielded. 

He had taken pride in his strength, his resourcefulness, his habit to never call for help, and to refuse it when it was offered. He supposed it was better than facing the fact that no one shielded him, not even his beloved mother. It was maybe the first lie he told to himself. I'm not abandoned, I'm independent.

It was unacceptable. She deserved better. She deserved to live a life free of guilt, she deserved to be able to be her true self, she deserved to inhabit her own body, to have her own mannerism, to exercise her own talents. She deserved better than lies. She deserved to grow up. 

“You’re right,” he said. “I only wanted you to be sad and bitter like me. That was selfish.” And stupid.

“That’s because you’re a liar.”

“I didn’t mean to lie about this. Not really. It’s just…”

“No I mean you’re a liar, so you want to have people like you,” she cut him off. This habit of her was irritating. “ Because leis make everything complicated. You know… you know what it’s like, to be in a room full of people, like… like a party or a birthday and you’re pretty sure you were invited but you can’t find your invitation anymore, and you don’t know anyone and you wish you were somewhere else and you fear you’re gonna do something wrong and everyone will hate you?” she asked suddenly.

“Yes, pretty much,” he growled. It curiously reminded him of his first day at Hogwarts, when he sat at a table far from Lily. It curiously reminded him of his whole life. It was a strange feeling, to be sat in front of someone that seemed to be telling him such a sensitive moment of his own life. It wasn’t like the moments when Dumbledore used to explain his own reality. It didn’t fill him with confusion, irritation and shame. It felt different. It felt comforting.

“Well, that’s what a lie is,” said Lillian, biting into her warm seventh waffle. Snape waited for the following, but there wasn't any.

“Lillian, you have to be more specific, I cannot read into your head.” It was a lie of course, and usually he would have said this without even noticing, but this time, he felt it. It was like the words in his mouth tasted different.

“When you lie to people, every day is like this.” He barely understood what she had said, with her mouthful. “When you’re alone-alone, like in the woods, it’s fine because it can end. You just have to meet someone. But when you’re alone with all the people you love… then you’re just lonely.”

Snape snickered. “ What a romantic thought.” 

“That’s not romantic, that’s true. That’s why you want me to be bitter and sad like you. So you’ll be less lonely while not telling the truth.”

“Talk about yourself.” He was feeling lectured, and by a child that was more, and he didn’t like this at all. “Why did you come at me in the first place? You saw someone living in the woods like you, so you started looking around and talking to me. You only wanted to feel less alone.”

“Yes I know. I was there.” she shrugged. 

“So you’re no better than me, and you’re in no place to lecture me.”

“I was lecturing you?” she asked. It was like he had just said she had stepped on his foot. She frowned, like lost in a deep reflection. “Well I guess it’s bad to make friends that look like you.” She nodded. “Ok, I know this now, it will save me time.”

“No! That’s not... “ He rubbed his eyes. It flashed sparks like a galactic wars under his eyelids, and some stars gathered to make the memory of Lily, on the swing in the park, the only other magic child he knew, the only other person like him he knew, this friend he wanted so badly to make; “That’s not what I meant. It’s normal to make friends. It’s normal to avoid loneliness. You’re normal. Sort of. I’m just…” It was his second lie. After telling him he wasn’t abandoned, he was only independent, he told himself he wasn’t lonely, he was only strong. “I’m just a liar,” he finished. And an idiot.

Lillian sighed and seemed to soften, like a marshmallow over the fire. “That’s a relief. We’re supposed to be friends, since you gave me waffles and I gave your hat back. But it’s really hard to talk to you. I always feel like I’m at school. Or I’m interrogated. You’re not a secret agent, right?” she asked. “That’s a weird coincidence I found you in the woods. You look like a secret agent, now that I think about it.” She squinted at him, like the words “secret agent” would be revealed on his forehead if she looked hard enough.

“I’m not, but I guess why you’re feeling like this.” She still looked at him with suspicion. He knew it was her growing persona that was trying to take over, to get between them, between her and the world. He shouldn’t let it happen. “I used to be a teacher,” he tried.

It worked. Lillian bursted into laughter. “So that’s why you’re weird!” and he tried not to feel offended. “Teachers are the worst to talk with. Every time I tried, I just got detention. You guys can't help it.”

“You’re not wrong.” He was feeling kind of proud of himself. He didn’t lie.

Lillian engulfed the last bite of waffle and rolled on the ground. She laid on her back, waving arms and legs, making an angel out of dead leaves. Snape suddenly felt his scar tearing. He haven’t realized a smile was trying to sneak onto his face. She was acting like a normal child again.

She played with her wooden bracelet, but not rubbing the beads in a nervous gesture, only making twirl around her finger. She gasped loudly when it slipped out and flew through the air onto Snape’s feet. She let out a sigh of relief.

“I thought it would go into the fire,”’ she confessed. “I should take more care of it. It’s a gift. But I’m not careful. Look.” She walked on her knees clumsily, took the bracelet and showed it to Snape. “You see here? It’s erased. I rub it too much. We cannot read anymore.”

Snape took the bracelet in his palm. The large wooden beads were worn out and faded. The varnish was cracked, and the painted letters barely noticeable where Lillian rubbed them. Snape took the bracelet nearby the fire, and at the light, he could decipher the last remaining letters: "LILY" and "SEV", separated by a heart in blue plastic. The “V” looked too narrow. The other letters were too faded to be read. There were four of them.

“I rubbed her name out,” said Lillian. “I didn’t mean to. She didn’t like her full name, like me. But her mom could let it cut short. Like she didn’t want to let her cut her hair short. She was forced to exist so much,” she said, spreading her legs by the fire. She leaned her back on the side of the crate. “Then I cut her life short.” She looked sad again.

“My friend I killed haven’t cut his hair for 45 years.” He wasn’t sure why he said this and felt awkward. That was probably out of place.

But Lillian giggled. “He must have been stepping on it!”

“He at least stepped on his beard once. I saw it.”

Lillian laughed uproariously. “Eryn stepped on her princess gown at Halloween. Her belt broke and she spent the whole night holding it!”

Snape felt the tear in his scar again. It was the first time since his death that he talked about Dumbledore. He never felt allowed to. He wondered how long Lily had gone without talking about her friend either.

“How did you meet her?” he asked. He realized with a pinch of surprise he was interested in her answer.

She took her bracelet back and twirled it around her finger again. She sat comfortably against the crate.

“We became friends on the first day of school.”


	4. Chapter 4

On the first day of summer holidays, Lori declared Lily would change school in September. Lily hadn’t been surprised. Her last school report had been bad. The encounter with the headmistress had been worst. 

Lily was used to be a bad student - she was brilliant in some subjects and dim in others. She had thought it was enough to make her an average student - but this irregularity was a flaw of its own, and while she had the same overall average than the average students, her particular case was bad. Teachers didn’t want the students to learn, they wanted them to work. Nothing vexed them more than a talented student that lived on their talent. It made them feel useless, which in Lily’s opinion, they were. Everything she had learned, she had learned on her own, in her own terms, her own pace, following her interests.

But it wasn’t her marks that the headmistress discussed with her mother, in the cramped office that Lily had visited so many times before. It was her behaviour. For the headmistress, Lily was “unruly”, “disruptive”, “overly imaginative”. She refused to take responsibility for her misdeeds and would always blame “ghosts” or “aliens” or “invisible unicorns.” Her tendency to hide or run away when she was upset had been a problem all year long. It was out of the question to bring her along in school trips. For the headmistress, it was clear that Lily had to see a child psychiatrist, or change school.

Lori took her decision immediately. While she didn’t deny any of Lily’s actions, she had other words for it. Lily was “active”, “brilliant”, “sensitive”, “artistic”, and “bored.” She needed a better environment, more attention and more stimulation. 

She made a plan with her brother Walter, who lived on the upper side of the upper city. He would declare that his niece was living with him, so she’d be allowed in priority in a high ranking school, that had more means and less students. 

For Lily, it was confusing, for Lori, it was exhilarating, for Walter, it was a relief. Ten years ago, when his sister announced him she was dropping out law school to raise alone a baby from an unknown father, he had tried to understand. He never truly did, but his affection and respect for his sister didn’t depend on understanding. He accepted her decision, and he buried his judgemental feelings under a layer of love, and his judgment sprouted as guilt, and this guilt blossomed as overprotectiveness.

The difference between the situations of two equally clever, hard-working and talented siblings, had for Walter the shades of injustice, and he wanted to make up for this. If Lily was a restricted daughter, she was a spoiled niece. Her uncle would cover her with gifts and could never say no to any of her whims. He realized after she had been expelled from her previous school that his permissiveness may have played its role in Lily’s temper and habits, and the reproaches of the headmistress maybe weren’t as undeserved as Lori said. A little lie to the administration was a little price to pay for a solid education, and make up for an overprotective love, that could make more damage than no love at all.

On the first day of school, Lily felt like she was about to become prime minister. She liked the idea. She made plans about world domination, while Lori was wrapping her into her best clothes and best advice. Be nice. Be polite. Observe the other kids and try to do like them. Be polite. Don’t talk about your od school. Don’t talk about our neighbours. Don’t forget you’re supposed to live with your uncle. Be very polite. Lori who had been excited the whole holidays now looked nervous, for reasons Lily couldn’t understand. She was going to a rich school, with rich people. Walter was the only rich person she knew, so for her, rich meant “who gives gifts all the time.” 

Never she knew that rich people would be mean.

She entered the school playground with her new bag and her new coat that Walter wanted to pay and Lori refused. It was a long, thick coat, very warm, with a bright red. Lily had chosen the colour. She liked what was bright and warm.

She observed the other students. She didn’t understand her mother’s advice at first. They were doing the same things as any pupils. They were running, playing tag, some kids were crouched betting pogs, a group of boys was playing soccer. Lily immediately took off her coat, let it fall on the ground and ran to join them.

She didn’t understand the outcry was because of her when she seized the ball, neither she understood that the whistle was meant for her. A teacher walked to her, handing her coat :

“Don’t leave your things in the middle of the playground like this,” she said, frowning. “This is not a landfill here,” and the boys scoffed.

“That’s ‘cause she’s rubbish” one whispered, and she turned to insult him, but she remembered her mother made her promise to be very polite, so she stuck her tongue at him. It was the most polite she could do.

She put her coat on her arm and walked to the courtyard, where girls her age were engaged in an animated discussion. As her mother advised her, Lily observed them. While Lily was ten, the oldest age of this primary school, all the girls looked older than her. One in particular looked like a miniature adult. She had the delicate features of a doll, but the posture and the manners of a young lady. She had black, smooth hair that landed gently on her shoulders, that no wind seemed able to dishevel. She was wearing a pink jacket with glitters on the buttons, a pleated skirt and tiny shoes with, Lily realized with a blend of horror and respect, half an inch of heel.

She walked to the group of friends. This half heeled girl was piquing her curiosity like an unknown species of birds. But she couldn't reach the courtyard that another girl, not as well manner, not as well kept, but exuding an aggressive energy, torn on her coat and unfolded it, feeling the fabric.

“What is this coat? Why do you wear that?” The question stopped her walk she had run into a wall. It sounded like an accusation.

“It’s cold outside?” she answered. It was a weird question. This girl was weird. But she had to be nice, because she was a liar, a liar with a fake address, and liars must be nice to not be caught.

“It’s a winter coat. We’re in autumn.”

“There are winter and autumn coats?”

The girl laughed, and other girls joined her, and he spotted behind them the boy that called her “rubbish”. They laughed at her, with nasty laughters that grinded to her ears. They laughed like she had said something stupid, when she knew well she didn’t. Autumn meant she left her coat open, and winter meant she closed it. It was logical and practical and it was like everyone did. They were going to be very cold in a couple of months, with these light jackets they were wearing.

She snatched her coat back, put it on and keep on walking to the courtyard, to the girl that looked like a strange species of bird. But she was looking to her direction now, probably distracted by the loud noises. And Lily’s coat felt heavy on her shoulder, it felt uncomfortable, too hot, too red and too bright. She felt clumsy and ugly, and she didn’t want to talk to anyone anymore, especially not the pretty ones. She decided that these girls were stupid too. No one needs two coats, it’s a waste of money and fabric. She’d find more interesting classmates, who knew what was logical.

The bell rang, and the students ran to their classes. Lily didn’t know where hers was. rushed into the wrong one, lost herself in the corridors, and arrived late in the classroom. The teacher had her sitting in the middle of the class, but after a few minutes, she made her sit on the front, talking about some “squinting” at the chalkboard, and about wearing glasses. Some classmates giggled at little, not too much, because the teacher was here; but Lily knew that squinting was as bad as wearing a winter coat in September.

She took her things and sat at the front row. The gaze of the silent classmates weighed on her shoulders even heavier than her coat did. She sat right in front of the girl who looked like a bird. Lily imagined she was looking at her dishevelled hair, and her pencil bag, and her large baskets that had no heel at all. She felt humiliated for her mother, who had tried to make her look nice. They weren’t even capable to realize this. They were all stupid. 

The first lessons had been hard. She didn’t know how to find a common denominator in a fraction. The teacher made a mistake during the history lesson, and had been very angry when Lily corrected her. Even the teacher was stupid. 

During mid-morning recess, Lily didn’t want to be in this school anymore. She wanted to go back home. She wanted to be left alone. But the same girl who mocked her coat wouldn’t let go of her. 

She laughed at how she pronounced some words. She laughed at her for playing with running water. She laughed when she got scolded for climbing up the tree. She laughed when the boys wouldn’t let her play with them again. She laughed because she didn’t have a PlayStation.

“Playstation games are stupid,” Lily spatted. “It’s all real games. You all are stupid!”

And these laughs, again and again. 

“Have you ever played?” said the girl with a fake concern. She was Shelly. Or maybe Nancy. Lily didn’t care to learn any name. They were all the same anyway. She was munching on a chocolate snack from a brand Lily had never seen elsewhere but on TV ads.

“Why would I? It sounds boring.” She had a snack in her pocket that had no brand at all but didn’t feel like eating. Something heavy and swollen was taking all the space in her stomach. 

“It depends on the game,” said a voice behind her that didn’t sound like mockery. “You only need to find the ones you like.”

Lily turned around and saw the black-haired girl who looked like a bird. She had black eyes, a nice smile, and shiny earrings on really pierced ears like a grown-up. She was taking small bites of a chocolate croissant, and didn’t have any chocolate stains around her lips, or crumbs on her pink jacket.

The heavy, swollen thing in her stomach blew a little bit more. She became aware her knees were soaking wet, her shoes already stained with mud. If this girl noticed this too, she would stop talking to her and she’d feel sad. But if she didn’t want to talk to her first, she wouldn’t feel anything, so Lily shrugged. “I have no time to lose with fake things. I play with real things. I’m not stupid like you. Leave me alone.” She was being rude, she was disobedient to her mother, but for a reason she couldn’t explain, she couldn't help it.

“You can see that like an interactive movie. You can play at my house if you want.” The black-haired girl was still polite to her, after she’d been rude. She may be some kind of princess or something. Maybe it was possible. Her mom told her people here would be different. Maybe the girl was a princess and Lily created a diplomatic incident and she’d never be prime minister and her life was over.

The other girl sneakered. “Beware,” said Shelly or Nancy, “she’s gonna spread mud everywhere in your carpet. She’s a peasant.”

The black-haired girl shrugged. “We have a clean lady. Don’t you have one? I bet you don’t.”

“Yeah, we have one, it’s her mom”, said the girl, and Lily punched her in the face.

She was asked to the headmaster office. On her first day of school.

She left the dark room with a punishment and a paper to be signed by her mother. The recess time was almost over. The children were still playing with no worries. Lily wondered how they did this.

She slowly walked back to the playground, looking around for a place to hide, maybe a window open to escape. When she turned the angle of the corridor, she almost bumped into the black-haired girl. 

Lily muttered incomprehensible apologies. She wasn’t used to do this. But the girl was smiling.

“That. Was. So. Cool,” she said. Lily thought she had misheard. It was the first time someone said Lily was cool. “I often want to punch Shelly in the face too. But I can’t, I have a ring. My name is Seweryn. But I prefer Eryn. You are Lily, right?”

Lily didn’t think anyone would care to remember her name.“I prefer Lily.” She hoped she wasn’t coming off at rude. She remembered her mother’s advice: “Nice to.. to meet you Eryn,” she stuttered. It felt weird to speak to another child like this.

“You know how to forge your mom’s signature?” asked Eryn.

The question took her aback, just like the one about her coat. “No! I never did that! I swear! I…”

“Don’t sweat it,” said Eryn, and she went through a little bag of real leather, to pull out a cute little notebook, ornate with real dry flowers. “I do it all the time. You have to practice first. There mustn’t be any hesitation in the trait. I know it because I’m an artist. What do you think of this one?” She flipped the pages to show a ball pen sketch of a livid zombie, blood dripping of holed face. “It’s from “resident evil”. I’m not allowed to play but I watch my old brother playing. It’s on PlayStation.”

The heavy and swollen ball that lived in Lily’s stomach melted, leaving behind an empty place that filled up with words that rose to her throat and mouth: “You are the most coolest girl in the entire world.”

Eryn laughed, and it was a smooth, loud laughter that fell into Lily’s ear with ease, without grind or unpleasant sound.

Eryn invited Lily at her house the following week. “Invited” was a big word. She sneaked her in. Her parents weren’t there and her older brother was supposed to watch over her, but they had a non-snitch policy. Eryn introduced Lily to him as “her new best friend.” Lilian felt all warm inside. She’d never been anyone’s best friend, old or new.

Eryn lived in the biggest house Lily ever seen. There was a garden in front and behind, and an entire attic that you could walk without bending over. Eryn said it was haunted.

“My house is haunted too!” said Lily. “Ghosts keep moving objects around. My mom doesn’t believe me. She says it’s me who breaks things.”

“For real? Can I come and see? We only hear the ghosts here, we never see them doing anything.”

“Of course you can come over! We…” Then Lily remembered she was supposed to live with her uncle. It was like running into a wall inside her head again. “I… I’ll have to ask.” She blushed, mumbled. “But I don’t think it’s gonna be possible…” She wasn’t used to lying. She hated that. Lies only made everything complicated.

Eryn gave her a side look and witty smile: “You chicken out, right? I knew your house wasn’t haunted for real.”

“It is real!” Lily was ready to get upset, but she understood Eryn was only teasing her. 

Lily went to Eryn’s house every weekend her parents weren’t there. It never crossed Lily’s mind that it would be odd. Things were always funnier when parents weren’t around, all kids knew that. She never thought that maybe Eryn didn’t want to introduce Lily to her parents.

Eryn never asked to be invited to her house again. Lily never talked about it again. It was such a relief for her that she dropped the subject that she never thought it may be odd, too. 

She was a bit disappointed for Eryn. It would be her only chance to meet real ghosts. As winter and its snowballs fights went by, as spring used the ball games up, when summer and its holidays finally came in, Lily had made her mind about this “haunted” attic. The weird noises were the pipes groaning, the tapping sounds were a family of dormice, and the weird smell was her brother smoking weed. Lily never told Eryn. She didn’t want to make her sad. Rich people can have everything, but they can’t have real ghosts. It was even.

Rich people could also go into a thalassotherapy for a whole week, so Eryn invited Lily to a sleepover. It was in secret of course. It was always in secret. But this time, they both had a solid reason to keep their night meeting secret.

“We need to make the human sacrifice at midnight”, had said Eryn, and it seemed logical to Lily. Midnight was a good hour for human sacrifice, and Eryn’s brother would be asleep and wouldn’t disturb them.

It was the last week of August. The weather was too lovely to even think about going back to school again. Eryn would go to a private high school. Lily would go to the public one. She’d still be using Water’s address, it was still a higher ranking school, but Lily cared no more about becoming prime minister and conquer the world. She just wanted to be with Eryn. They had split the world map, picking the country each would rule. They couldn't be separated.

Eryn found the solution. They’d summon Satan to burn down the private school, so she’d have to go with Lily. It was the first idea that crossed her mind and it pleased Lily greatly. She hoped they could take the bus and watch it burn.

It was barely the afternoon, but Eryn thought they’d have to rehearse the real human sacrifice to be sure to get it right. She had done some try, and it was harder than she thought. When her brother was busy in the attic smelling like ghosts, Eryn and Lily spent a significant amount of time in the kitchen picking up knives. Lily wanted the steak knives, because the flesh is like a steak, but Eryn picked a large and toothless cooking knife that almost looked like a hatchet.

“Why this one?’ asked Lily, following her back into her room.

“Because the teeth leave weird marks over the neck,” explained Eryn, sitting on the round crochet carpet nearby her bed. “You have to chop down the head in one go, like this! Trust me, I tried already. You need a toothless knife.”

“Speaking of toothless. Look! My tooth is moving!”

“Yikes! Disgusting! Do it again.” Eryn cringed and laughed when Lily moved her teeth again, with zombie noises. “So cool! But if you lose it here, please don’t bleed on my Lion King bedsheet, it’s my favourite. Now we need to prepare the summoning. A rehearsal, like for my equestrian gala.”

“Ho, you have an equestrian gala? When? Could I see you?” said Lily sitting crossed legs on the bed.

Eryn picked from a lavender toy box a bouquet of Barbie dolls. One had tape around her neck and her head was hanging dangerously. “It’s done already,” she said without looking at her. “Anyway, it wasn’t that interesting. Do you have the magical formula?”

“Here,” said Lily. She retrieved from her back pocket a sheet of paper she had ripped from her mom’s old Latin dictionary. “I wish I could have seen you. When is the next one?”

“Next year. But…” she placed the dolls in a circle, and planted a birthday candle in a ball of playdough. “Do you have the matches?”

“But what?” insisted Lily. It was rare that Eryn felt hesitant toward her. She tossed the matches but Eryn wasn’t looking at her and received them in the face. Lily giggled. Eryn didn’t.

“But… I mean… You’ll have to dress differently. And talk differently. My… my parents won’t like you if you don’t.” She looked embarrassed. “They invited Shelly,” she said rolling her eyes.

The news almost knocked Lily off the bed. “Shelly? But you hate her! She sucks! You should invite me too! I’d punch her again.”

“I know, right?” said Eryn drawing a regular, symmetric pentagram of salt around the dolls. Lily watched her with fascination. Eryn had a sure hand and was really good at neat and precise work. “But my mom is friend with her mom. She wants me… well. She wants me to be like Shelly.”

“Ho, like,” Lily jumped on her feet, and waddled the carpeted room, waving her hand like she had seen the Queen doing on TV “‘hellow, I em Shiiiillea, I saw a bug today and…” She let herself fall on the bed. ” ...I fainted!”

Eryn burst out laughing “Exactly! Beware the bedsheet, don’t… don’t put your feet on it. But yes.” 

“Why don’t you tell her? To your mom? You don’t like Shelly and you don’t want to be like her. That’s not hard. Nothing better than telling the truth to arrange things.”

“I tried. but I…” She arranged her glossy hair, toyed her shiny earrings. “I just… I just want my mom to like me.” She bite her polished nails. “She’s never around. She’s always gone. And when she’s here, if I don’t do like she says, she won’t talk to me. That’s just... that’s just a waste of time, you know? She’s very nice otherwise. If I’m exactly like she wants, we talk and laugh and this is nice. I don’t want to waste the little time I have with her with sad things or arguments…” She looked around and spotted a cute doll mirror under her bed. She took a glance at it and sighed. “I need to be perfect. Like Shiiiilea.”

“Your mom will like you all the same no matter what you do.” Lily, still laying on the bed, pedalled in the air, her feet pushing the shelves. The unicorn figurine started to tremble, like ready to gallop. “My mom likes me like I am. that’s what moms do.”

Eryn shrugged and sighed. “I’d like to see your mom.” It was the first time she said this. There was a sadness in her voice that Lily couldn’t understand.

“One.. one day,” mumbled Lily.

“My parents are back in four days. That’s probably the only occasion I have to go around unsupervised. What, you’re ashamed of me too? That’s because I’m not cool like you?”

“What are you talking about?” said Lily, kicking around. “It’s not… it’s not that!” She kicked more nervously. She didn’t like the way this conversation was going. Eryn’s mood was usually constant and stable, she didn’t understand why it was shifting suddenly. “And it’s you who won’t even talk about me to your parents! Talk about yourself! My mom knows everything about you.”

“Can you stop doing that,” said Eryn with an adult tone. “You’re gonna break something.”

“Doing what?” said Lily, still moving. She kicked the shelf and the unicorn fell in its side.

“Your thing with your feet! Are you a baby? Damn, you don’t understand anything at all, right? No surprise you’re at the bottom of the class.”

Lily stood up, like a spring of the mattress pushed her up “Hey that’s not nice!”

“Well that’s true. Telling the truth arranges things, right?”

Lily had seen Eryn upset, but hardly angry, and it has never been this particular anger. It was like a hollow aggressivity, crystallized to contain something more volatile, more fragile, a sadness, a bitterness. Lily sensed this feeling was floating freely around Eryn, without a target, without outlet, with nowhere to go. And since Lily was the only person in the room, like bugs attracted to the light, this artificial anger went to her. 

It was unfair. Lily didn’t like either that it had been this damn Shelly and not herself who watched Eryn riding horses. But she was trying to find a solution. It was Lily who had real reasons to be mad right now. Eryn could say anything she wanted about Shelly, it was still Shelly who was invited and not her. 

“I don’t need lessons from filthy little hypocrites like you.”

Lily had whispered, but the words seemed as loud as she had shouted them. Eryn let go of the doll with a hanging head, her eyes widened.

“... Hypocrite? Me?”

Sometimes, people need a year to understand someone in one second. Lily had known Eryn for a year, and in this one second, she understood her. It was like a painting she was squinting at, seeing patches of colour here and there, and taking a step back, she finally was able to watch the scenery. Eryn was torn between trying to please her mother and to respect herself. She was trying to reconcile her love for cute things and horror. She had no choice, to be true to herself, to lie to at least one person, always. She didn’t like this more than Lily did. She was just used to it. 

Lily understood in this one second, how much she may suffer, and how she may feel to hear this constant pressure called “hypocrisy”.

“... That’s.. that’s not what I meant…” She wished she could explain all of this, all these thoughts that just crossed her mind, but it was more a feeling than an idea, so she could only stutter these empty words.

“This is… the worst thing you can say to a friend… to anyone. That’s… the worst thing ever in the entire world.” Eryn’s voice broke. She let the doll fall on the floor, breaking the salt pentagram.

Lily disagreed, there were worst things to say to someone, like “liar” or “weirdo”, but she understood why it was the worst for Eryn.

“I said I was sorry!” she shouted. Lies always made everything complicated, but sometimes the truth was too big to be contained in words. Lily didn’t have words strong enough to hold all the truth she had just seen. She hoped that screaming made words stronger. It didn’t.

“So? You said it anyway. What you gonna say? It slipped? So that’s what you really think of me? No one understands why I’m friend with you. I no longer want to play with you. You always break everything. I no longer want to talk to you anymore.”

The fatal words have been spoken. Eryn’s words were stronger than Lily’s, and she didn’t have to scream for this.

Lily looked at the broken pentagram, the dolls lying in disorder, the candle that had been shut off. She had no idea what kind of demon her words had summoned in Eryn, but she sure wanted it to go back.

“Shut up! Shut up! I don’t wanna hear you!”

But Eryn was still talking, with words that Lily didn’t understand, but with a tone she recognized too well. It was the grinding tone she had heard in the laughter of the other girls, in the voice of her headmaster, it was the voice that was pointing her, calling her a weirdo, a freak, someone who never does anything right.

“Shut up!” she kept yelling covering her ears, closing her eyes. “I don’t want to hear anything!”

And Eryn went quiet.

The silence broke the screams as suddenly as the screams had broken the silence. It startled Lily, she opened her eyes, and all the sounds of the world escaped her.

She wished she could scream. She wished she could call for help. She wished she could put words on what she was seeing, but her words were weaker than ever.

Eryn, rolling on her carpet, her eyes widened in horror, her voice muffled and unarticulated, was scratching her lower face. Her mouth had disappeared. A smooth curtain of flesh was closing her face from her nose to her chin. Her eyes were full of tears, but no cry could break through.

Lily had no idea what was happening, but she knew it was her fault. A feeling older than her first memory told her it was entirely her fault, everything was always her fault, and she had to fix it.

“Eryn, Eryn, don’t… don’t move. I know what to do.”

She had read in her uncle’s book an entry about tracheotomy. There were pictures. It was something easy to do, said the article. It could be performed by a beginner, in case of emergency.

Lily kneeled by Eryn, took the sharp knife, and rose it about her face. Eryn panicked and tried to escape.

“Don’t move! I may hurt you! I don’t want to miss it!”

She sat astride her friend’s struggling body, putting a hand on her forehead, the knifepoint tracing a line where she supposed the mouth should be. Lily took a deep breath, secured her friend’s head, and for the first time of her life, she chose to lie : 

“This is not gonna hurt.”

She pressed the knife on the cheek, and there were screams, confusion and blood.

Eryn’s voice was free and terrified. She was screaming at the top of her lungs. Her hands on her cheeks were dripping with blood.

Lily stood up, unsteady. Eryn had a mouth. A full mouth, with lips, and corners, and everything, curved around a scream. A mouth and a deep, bleeding cut. She had both. Maybe that was why her scream was so loud. 

A hasty footstep running down the stairs. A silhouette at the door. The smell of a ghost. Eryn’s brother was standing in the room, looking at her, looking at Eryn. He ran to his sister, took her in his arms, shouting something about calling an ambulance and the police.

In the empty bedroom, Lily’s weak hand let go of the knife. The blood stained the bedsheets.

********************

She thought she would go to jail. She thought policemen would show at her door to take her. She spent the following days hidden in her bedroom. She heard the hasty stepping of her mother in the living room. The whispers with uncle Walter. She’d have preferred to hear them scream. Yelling, cursing. It would cover the screamings that resonated inside her head.

Everything was too silent. Even the words spoken to her were silent. They were devoid of reproaches, or anger, or catastrophic news. She never heard about Eryn again. She wasn’t allowed to go near her family, or her house, or to phone call her brother. She never had a chance to say she was sorry. She never knew when the funeral happened. It was like Eryn had vanished, dissolved in her own blood.

Lily met a nice doctor who made her draw sun and snakes, and watch inkblots. The nice doctor gave her pills, but Lily didn’t feel sick. She wasn’t hurt anywhere. Maybe except at her right hand. She always felt like she was holding something, a long, metallic object, even when her hand was empty.

Lily didn’t lie, and the nice doctor said that on September first, Lily would go to a special school, with special teachers to take care of her. 

It sounded like what her mother had said, a year ago. But Lori wasn’t excited or nervous anymore. Lori was crying, when she thought Lily couldn’t hear her. Lily couldn’t figure out why. Wasn’t it what she wanted for her daughter? A special school? Lily thought it was related to the murder, but wasn’t sure. Lily was no longer sure of anything. Thinking was hard lately. The doctor said the pills helped her thinking correctly, but Lily didn’t feel like it at all. It muffled the screams inside her head, but no sound replaced it. Lily only felt empty. 

When her mother started to pack her stuff, Lily thought it was September first already. She hadn’t seen the time running. The pills muffled time in her head too. But it wasn’t September already. And Lori was packing her own stuff too. And the dishes. And the furniture.

“You’re not going anywhere,” she was muttering the whole time,” Walter told me. He knows what’s going on. ‘Special needs school’, that’s just an asylum, this is what it is. They’ll lock her inside and abandon her in there. He knows the doctors who work in there.” She was sniffing. It was like she always had a cold, or an allergy. Uncle Walter gave her pills against this too. “I always wanted. One thing for my daughter. The one thing I never had. Success. A bright future for my daughter. They won’t deprive her of this. It was an accident. My daughter isn’t crazy. It’s gonna be ok.” She ripped apart the letter from another special school that came this morning. It was like all the mental hospitals knew about her, and were fighting to have her. Maybe they liked murderers. Maybe they made a collection and she was a rare found. “They all can go to hell. It’s gonna be ok.”

She had taken the habit to talk about Lily like she wasn’t there. Lily felt like she was another ghost in the house. The doctor said the pills would make the ghosts go away. Maybe it was because of the pills that she had to go away, too.

Lily heard over the phone that her mom was having things like “nervous breakdown”. Lily knew what it was. She had read it on her uncle’s book. She had read also that she was schizophrenic. It was what gave her hallucinations, and make her believe ghosts existed. But not what made her harm Eryn. It was extremely rare that schizophrenic people harmed anyone. This one was on her. She was a terrible person. She killed her friend, and now she gave her mother a nervous breakdown, after she took her future. She’d better never been born at all.

Lily took meds that said ghosts didn’t exist. Lori took meds that said everything was going to be ok. Lily understood that anxiolytics meant “a pill that makes adults lie.”

They moved house quickly. Lori had to quit her job, the move had cost most of her savings, but things were gonna be ok. The pills said so. No one knew where they were, no one could find them. They’ll never hear about the mental hospitals ever again. They were safe. They had t be safe. They had nowhere else to go. They didn’t have any money left to go anywhere else. So it had to be ok. The mental hospital would never find them.

They found them two days later.

Lori found a letter in the mailbox. There wasn’t even their names on it yet. The boxes weren’t even unpacked yet.

Lori cried over the phone to her brother the whole evening. They were trapped. ““All of this because of this stupid story with Seweryn… If only nothing of this ever happened… We’d be so much happier… Please Walter, I can’t take it anymore, can you… can you take Lily with you? Can you take her away?”

Lily had stopped taking the pills that made the screams go away. She was now thinking clearly. She knew what it meant. Her mother no longer loved her anymore. She was a detestable thing. Her mother no longer wanted her around, and surely uncle Walter didn’t want her either. 

She knew what she had to do. She packed her things again, and disappeared into the night, into the woods, and into the nothingness. It was where she belonged. It was where she had sent Eryn. She made everyone unhappy around her, so she had to never see anyone, ever.

She wandered into the woods for three days. In her books, the woods were always full of edible mushrooms and berries and running streams of fresh water. Woods in sadness were very different from woods from books. She ate all her snacks on the first day. She tried to fish for an entire, boring day, and caught a fish, but it was little and tasted disgusting. She started to feel tired and grumpy. 

The second day she spotted a group of teenagers camping. She waited for them to go hiking and stole their supplies of food. She broke a few things and let a mess behind her, pretending it was a wild animal fond of sandwiches. She didn’t want anyone to know a human was around. She didn’t deserve to be around anyone. 

The third day she smelled warm food. She let her nose guide her, and soon she smelled smoke, and a touch of soap. She saw an ugly and weird man with a ghost. The ghost was holding a tin can above the fire, because ghosts can’t burn. 

She knew this man was like her. He had a ghost, like her, and he was hiding, like her. The man looked strange and unpleasant, but she probably looked strange and unpleasant too, or her own mother wouldn’t have disowned her. They were the same.

Lily had walked a long time, but not long enough to be cut of civilization. She’d hear voices from afar, or meet garbage abandoned on the paths, or see isolated farms from a hill. She had grown a kind of fear of other people that was different from shyness, or shame. It might have another name in her uncle’s book. It felt a bit like her first day at her new school, the swollen and heavy thing that lived in her stomach.

But this strange man by the bonfire didn’t trigger the swollen thing. He was like her. Lily had found better than a man she wouldn’t be scared of. She had found someone who wouldn’t be scared of her.

*********************

A log rolled out of the bonfire. Snape put it back in with a flick of his wand. He waited for Lillian to finish her story, but she was done. She was carefully avoiding his look. He rubbed his eyes. Colourful spots of lights appeared behind his lids, like an intergalactic war.

“Lillian, I want you to know something very important.” He didn’t know where to start. “I’m a terrible person.” That was probably the worst start he could chose. “A terrible man who did terrible things. I’ve watched people die. More than you can imagine. I want to tell you something very important.” He dropped his hand and peace came back into his eyes. “No one dies from a cut on their cheek.”

Lillian finally looked back at him. “You don’t believe me..” she muttered angrily. “You weren’t there. You don’t know how.. there was so much… so much…” Her voice cracked.

“Blood,” finished Snape. “The face bleeds a lot, but it heals quickly. This is easy to contain the haemorrhage. It’s not the amount of blood that comes out at first, but how much time it lasts that counts. Please don’t ask me how I know this. I believe you believe you killed her. But your friend Eryn is probably alive and well, with a scar that she’ll brag about in a few years”

“No. She would tell me. She would have told me if she was alive. Even if she was mad at me…”

“Your mother studied law,” said Snape. “You’re a minor. I’m sure she managed everything for your best interest. She probably helped Eryn’s parents get a temporary restraining order against you, against the promise you’ll never contact Eryn again.” Her mother engaged a procedure against his father when he entered Hogwarts. He never knew why she didn’t go through. “Can you…? Take this,” he said, tossing her a roll of toilet paper. “Blow your nose. And go back home.”

“But my mom doesn’t want me around.”

“Your mom wants you safe. Didn’t it crossed this excited imagination of yours, that she wants you to be safe? She wanted you to be where the mental hospital dedicated employees couldn’t find you. She had asked your uncle to hide you. You haven’t thought about this?”

Lillian blinked, her gaze lost in the fire. “No. I really thought she just hated me now. I had told Eryn that moms always love their child no matter what, but I have believed my mom no longer wanted me…”

“That’s guilt,” shrugged Snape. “ That’s shame. When you feel ashamed, you don’t want to be around your shame. But it lives within yourself, so you don’t want to be around yourself, so you think no one wants to be around you either.” 

A distant rhythmic sound was approaching, way beyond the distant trees at the horizon. Lillian rubbed her nose against her sleeve.

“That’s why you’re all alone too?”

“No, this has nothing…”

The rhythmic sound was getting closer. Lillian looked around, a growing concern painted onto her face.

“... That’s…” Snape went on. “Yes, that’s exactly why.”

The revelation came as a shock to him, while not as much as Lillian jumping onto her feet, pushing Snape and running into the tent.

He took his balance back and looked behind him. Lillian was trying to hide under his bunk bed. 

“They are here!” she said, trying to whisper and yell at the same time. “They’re coming! The secret police! The mental hospital!” She was trying to dig onto the pile of books. “They have helicopters! They’re after me!”

Snape rolled his eyes. “That’s only an agricultural vehicle or…” The noise came closer and clearer. It seemed to come from the sky above. Snape squinted at the night. “That’s probably only...” He swore and cast a _nocte oculus_. His vision became clearer and brighter. “That’s only…” He spotted the machine that was producing the sound. “That’s… a flying blue Ford Anglia.”

The car was flying high enough to not be spotted by muggle eyes in the night. Snape felt the fabric of the wizard hat in his pocket.

“Lillian. I want to ask you something. I already know the answer. I was suspecting it for a moment now. But I’ll ask anyway. The mental hospital, the one who found you right after you moved house. What’s its name?”

Behind him, from under the bunk bed, a squeaky and terrified voice whispered: “... Hogwarts.”

  
  
  


  
  



	5. Chapter 5

The winter winds were raging against the high windows of the Ravenclaw common room. A slow draught swung the mistletoes suspended to the blue ceiling. A log cracked in the low fire, the dancing flames reflecting in the baubles on the Christmas tree. Quiet conversations and pages flips softened the silence. There wasn’t as many students as usual. Most seventh years were already heading to Hogsmeade, to disapparate back to their home. The others were waiting for the Hogwarts Express to take them off. The room was packed with pieces of luggage and a quiet excitement.

Lilian was bent over a round table, her quill fluttering frantically. A mug of hot cocoa was smoking nearby her, a piece of marshmallow floating.

_ Dear Eryn, _

_ I hope you are doing well and that your wrist is going better now. I told your horses aren’t to be trusted and are only meant to make you fall. At least you are writing funny… _

“What are you doing?” said a young woman crashing into the sofa nearby. “Have you packed already?”

“Almost done”

_ I’m coming back home for Christmas break. I thought I could visit you every day, but you’re not allowed to apparate before you’re 17!!! THIS IS SO UNFAIR _ and she underlined “unfair” three times.

“What means ‘almost done’?” asked the young woman. She got up and tried to read over Lillian’s shoulder. A lock of her hair feel over Lillian’s head. Their hair was the same colour. “Are you writing to your muggle friend? can you save the stamp when she’ll answer back? My dad makes a collection. You know how he is with muggle things.”

“I know Ginny, I know…”

_ But maybe I’ll visit my uncle and then I will visit you, since you’re not living far apart. I can’t wait to see you! Have you changed? I have changed, I burned off an eyebrow. And you? I am disappointed too that you don’t have a cool scar like Garrett. But I relieved the ministry of secrecy had erased your memory, because I had a lot of nightmares afterwards and I’m happy you don’t... _

“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to say that,” said Ginny, muffling a yawn. “Didn’t my dad told you to lie about a private school far away or something?”

“He did, and I hate lies. And anyway they said they had erased every memory of me and she couldn’t remember me at all and it wasn’t even true.”

“Yep,” said Ginny crashing into the sofa again, sipping from the mug of cocoa. “The Ministry is understaffed and had so much work after the war, some things got messy.” She straightened up suddenly, almost spilling the cocoa. “Did you know McGonagall just discovered a kid like you? A half-blood who didn’t know he was one? He just had been sorted into Slytherin.” 

“Good! There’s this Slytherin boy who won’t stop making fun of me for arriving in October. It will show him it can also happen to his own house.”

Ginny took a sip from the mug, munching on the marshmallow. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we found out more. Slytherins have better self control in general. No wonder why he hasn’t done any accidental magic before, and went under the radar. You’re lucky Ravenclaws are a bit more emotive.” She stirred the cocoa. “All the lost Gryffindors were found by august.”

“Not surprising at all. You guys are just like that.” Ginny giggled in her cocoa.

_ I made another friend, she’s in Hufflepuff, she stills food for me at the kitchen. This is less difficult to make friends here because I’m a Ravenclaw, which means “wierd” in wizards, so everyone’s warned. _

“So, err,” mumbled Ginny. “You’re using the muggle postal service, or an owl?”

“The owls. I can do it alone this time, I’m no longer afraid of them.”

_ … But don’t think I’m going to forget you, because my friends aren’t as fun as you, and also Rus you know the guy I found on the ground in the woods said that a friend who is nice to you when everyone else was mean is the most precius of all. Which I already knew but he liked to think he can teach me stuff. _

“You don’t have to post another letter?” her voice was hesitant, and Lily dropped her quill to turn to her.

“You don’t have to beat around the bush like that, it’s not like you at all.”

“Are you writing to Snape?” she finally said.

“How could I?” said Lily turning back to her letter to Eryn. “I don’t have his address. he doesn’t even have one.”

“You didn’t have any news from him?”

“I just met the guy once,” sighed Lily. “It’s not like he’s… my friend or something.”

She had waited, her first days in Hogwarts. A letter from him seemed logical, if not expected. She was walking in the corridors he walked, attended the classes he had attended, using a magic he was using. She wanted to tell him things she didn’t have the time or the words to tell her mother. 

She never dared to ask for him in her letter to her mom. They had made acquaintance, when Severus brought Lilian back home. He even sat at the kitchen table and accepted a cup of coffee, looking strangely awkward. He had lost his professorial posture and voice tone, but didn’t feel enough at ease to talk like they had, under the night sky, roasting marshmallows. Maybe he wasn’t used to muggles manners, maybe it was the situation, surely it was the tears and hugs between Lily and her mom that made him uncomfortable. But Lily never had a chance to ask him. When the wizards hired by the school knocked at the door, Lily heard a crack, a fiushh, and when she turned back, Severus has disappeared. 

She never heard of him again. She never dared send him a letter. Even if she knew an owl could easily find him, she’d rather wait for nothing than waiting for an answer that would never come by. She had experienced rejection, and it made her sick. Indifference, she could handle it. She’d rather think he had forgotten about her, than he didn’t want to talk to her.

“Harry wrote a letter to him,” said Ginny like she finally was spitting a vomit flavoured Bertie Bott’s Bean.

“Who’s Harry?” asked Lily, without moving her eyes from her letter. “Ho! Yes, your boyfriend.”

_ Yesterday we had to turn mice into spoons, and mine just EXPLODED there was blood everywhere, but not so much because mice are small and also most part were metalic. After the break we’ll learn to transform rabbits, I can’t wait! I hope I’ll be allowed to take pictures this time. _

Ginny scoffed. “You really don’t know who Harry is beside my boyfriend? Did… Snape… mention him at all?”

“Nope.” Lily scratched a word. Ginny was distracting her with her pointless questions.

“Good. Because Harry wrote 74 letters actually. And he teared up all of them.” She took a large sip. “I guess that’s only therapeutic. You don’t have to reconcile to the real person if you only have to reconcile with the idea you had of the person.”

“Wow you’re deep today.”

“It’s not from me, it’s from Hermione,” laughed Ginny. “If I ever met Snape again, I’d just punch him. Faking his death like that? Harry understands. I don’t. I guess that has been so much going on during the war, it’s hard to process it all.”

“Didn’t you say you want to punch him since your first year, though?”

Ginny stretched like a cat. “Better late than never! Too bad if it takes an entire war to realize your dreams! By the way, you and Lori and invited at our house for Christmas day. My dad has many pictures and anecdotes about your dad, if you want.”

“Hmm,” mumbled Lily, bending over the table with a more intense concentration. She was writing a bit faster, a bit more nervously.

_ But this school isn’t as cool as it seems. Last week I got detention because I threw a harm-a-dilo blader into the face of another student I don’t like, he got rashes, and also I didn’t look at my potion that overflew and melted the table. I didn’t know wood could melt?? But this is how I made my new friend so every cloud has a silver lining I guess.  _

“ Ho, and I have the thing you asked for,” Ginny said searching her back pocket. She brought out a piece of newspaper. “His death announcement. I don’t know what you’re gonna do with it…”

Lily dropped her quill to tear the paper from Ginny’s hand. The yellowed paper showed large and stern letters: “Bilius Weasley” and in laced italic, the usual regrets and the “left us the 7th July 1986 at…” Lily counted on her fingers and nodded.

“He died eight months before my birth, one week after the last day my mom saw him. She never had a chance to tell him she was pregnant, so...” explained Lillian. 

“... And he never told the family he was seeing someone,” cut Ginny. “Dad thinks Bilius was waiting to see if things were going to be serious with your mom… He was a pure-blood, so his death announcement was only published in wizard newspapers, so you had no idea he actually never ditched your mom just like that,” she concluded snapping her fingers

“I will tell her. I don’t care about this guy, but… I will tell her. Thanks” said Lillian handing the piece of paper back. She sucked the tip of her quill. __

_ I didn’t want to go and visit my magical family, you remember? My cousins Ron and Ginny are always trying to be nice to me but it feels wierd because they call him my “dad” and he’s not even my dad, just my father. But I changed my mind. Also Ron is funny and Ginny let me ride her broom. _

Ginny took the last sip of cocoa. “We should really find another system,” she said like for herself. “Every magic child is registered at birth, but only the muggle-born ones receive a check-in and an explanation from a professor. The administration always assume that half-bloods have someone in their family to explain things. The same shit happened to Harry. At least, Dumbledore knew where he was. But you? And the other Slytherin boy? You had to make accidental magic to trigger an alarm so they can locate you. That makes no sense.” She put the empty cocoa cup on the table. “So, your stuff? Have you packed your clothes at least?”

“Nope, but I’ll have the time to pack by the time you make another mug of cocoa.”

Ginny stood up, without even trying to deny or look sorry. An ethereal voice came from the walls: “The Hogwarts Express takes off in one hour, please move your luggage into your beds so they can be taken care of.” Ginny looked around with a grimace.

“Was that the Grey Lady? This one’s creepy. I don’t care about any ghost but this one’s creepy. You don’t think she’s creepy?”

“I like her,” said Lily, dipping her quill into the ink. “I’m used to ghosts since I’m a baby.”

“Lily, we already talked about this, it was your accidental magic that made things float around and bring out your toys.”

“They were ghosts for me. You don’t have to reconcile with the real you if you only need to reconcile with the idea you had of the real you.”

“Wow you’re deep today.”

“It’s not from me. It’s from Rus.”

Ginny took the mug to her lips. She had forgotten it was empty. “I bring you another one.”

Lily moved her quill over her parchment and a fat ink drop stained the paragraph. 

_ Next year I’m gonna apply to be a beater in the quidditch team. I’ll tell you what it is, it’s so ridiculous, you’ll like it. I send you this by owl because maybe a feather will fall and you’ll gonna add it to your pegasus. See you soon! _

_ With all my love _

_ Lily _

_ ******************************** _   
  


The loud and rumbling car had left the highway to engage in the more narrow and calm ways. The moon was waxing in the clear night sky and the first stars were twinkling. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, tired by her journey and the late hour. She had talked excitedly for the first hour of the road with her mother, and now she was feeling empty, like it had been all the words she wanted to say that kept her awake. She leaned her forehead against the glass. She barely recognized the landscape that was her home now. She barely had the time to get used to it before going to Hogwarts.

They drove by the lake where she had met Severus for the first time. She twisted her neck, trying to see through the shadows of naked bushes and trees. But nowhere she saw the slouching figure of his tent. She didn’t see any fumes above the top of the trees, or the bouncing lights of a bonfire. When the car reached the old cornfields, she almost told her mother to brake, feeling in her heart that he must be here. But the flat fields were empty, and dark. No one was living here, no one was warming their skinny leg to a good fire, roasting marshmallows. 

Lillian didn’t recognize the narrow streets of the village, the house facades, or the colourful closed blinds appearing under the brush of the headlights. She didn’t recognize the small square with the grocery, still open and full of customers going for their last-minute purchases for Christmas eve. She didn’t feel like she was coming home. 

She was coming back in a muggle village, in a muggle house, in a muggle family. She never had to think about them as muggles before. She might start to feel alone now, because she’d have to lie. 

Her mother turned at the angle of the square and a sudden mist arose, blurring the world in a white shade. They parked in front of the little house, that Lily didn’t recognize as hers, or didn’t recognize as a house. The mist was enfolding it. When Lillian got out of the car, she could feel this mist was more than humid. There was like an oily feeling on her fingers. It looked like it was coming out of her chimney.

While her mother took her luggage out of the trunk, Lily carefully walked into the mist, waving her hands before her. She touched the front door and slipped her hands down to the handle. The heavy, oily mist seemed to trickle down from the lock, and slip from under the door, falling on the threshold stairs. She couldn’t see her feet. Lily lowered the handle. It was unlocked. She pushed open the door and the house exploded.

It was a soft, humid, muffled explosion, like a lazy bubble bursting at the surface of a swamp. Lillian felt her hair sticking to her forehead, her clothes becoming heavy from the oily humidity. The frames banged on the wall, baubles twinkled on the Christmas tree, and from the kitchen, she heard glasses colliding, pans clashing, dishes clanking, cutlery slipping off the table and two people coughing.

“Told you it was…. unstable,” said a tired voice in the kitchen between two coughs.

Lillian waved her hands before her face, trying to clear her way, but she was only drawing arabesques in the thick smog, that twirled and vanished with a rainbowy shimmer.

“I’m gonna open… the window” said another coughing man.

Lillian stumbled on the sofa, walked into a floor lamp and bumped into a wall. She never had the chance to get used to this house, but with lots of stepping and fumbling, she found the kitchen door.

The mist was even thicker here, but slowly swallowed out through an open window. The winter night wind was rushing in, tearing the fog apart, but the room was warm and pleasant. She saw the refracted light in the oven, and the stove was burning under a bubbling pot.

Two hands grabbed her under her armpits, tried to lift her, and gave up with a groan. “My niece! My favourite niece! here you are! You’re back!”

“Uncle Walter?”

She didn’t know her uncle would be here and felt delighted. She wrapped an arm around his waist and another around his forearm, before she realized it was the back of a chair. She punched his stomach gently, then patted his arms up and down, ruffled his hair, then finally let go of him and tried to decipher his odd silhouette in the steam. He was wearing large and coloured goggles, a large overcoat that used to be white, and the brightest of smiles.

“How are you? Did you travel safely? Are you hungry? Have you seen that?” he asked showing the kitchen around, then without waiting for an answer: “Uncle Claus brought you the best of presents,” he said. He never could help bragging. “It hasn’t been easy to find my way in Diagon alley and this money makes no sense, but I got what I wanted you to want.”

Lillian blinked. “You went to Diagon Alley? The same Diagon Alley I went with my teacher to get my school stuff?”

“Of course! where was I supposed to get gifts for my witch niece! Rus had to get some whatever powder here so he took me along.”

A rush of wind lowered the flames under the stove, and cleared the mist. A silhouette bent over the oven unfolded slowly.

“Dry knotgrass powder, trying to avoid what exactly happened,” said the tired voice that Lily recognized immediately. “I told you this potion wasn’t stable.”

Lily felt a slight wave of magic, and a noise similar to a vacuum cleaner. The mist finally got sucked in by the oven, and Lillian was now able to see the kitchen was, in scientific terms, “a fucking mess”.

Pans and cauldrons were bubbling on the stove. Glasses and test tubes rack were battling for space on the counter. Knives and scalpels, mortar and blenders, arm balance and electronic scale, phials and plastic bottles were laying here and there in chaos. Lily felt charitable enough to think one second that it was the smooth explosion that pushed the cardboard, leather chests and wooden boxes in the middle of the room, and under the table, but only one second. She felt it was already like this.

She turned to the dark silhouette by the oven that looked engrossed in the spectacle of an enormous turkey roasting, along with a metallic and hermetic box that she had only saw in her potion classes. Severus wasn’t even looking at her. He looked like an intimidating stranger.  His hair was slicked back, revealing a strand of white running through the sleek black hair. like a villain in a comics.  He was wearing a long dark robe that she had never seen before, a high and white collar that made him carry his head straight and high and overall, the pink gingham apron of her mother.

Lillian jumped on a wooden box, and prepared to jump on his back, but she caught in the oven door the reflection of his eyes that weren’t looking at the turkey at all, but right at her. He saw she saw, and looked away, with a strange twist of his already twisted mouth like he was chewing something. Lily had learnt many things at school about Severus, most of them that didn’t stick to the man she knew, but it helped her remembering the main thing about him: he was a goddamn idiot.

So instead of jumping on his back and punch his shoulders like a normal person would do, she stayed on the wooden box and stood akimbo: “why are you still here?” she said faking an angry voice.

Severus turned over. Lily was sure the apron wasn’t meant to billow, but it billowed anyway: “Why are  _ you _ still here? This is an experiment area. You must wear protection.”

“How was I supposed to know that, I just came back.”

Severus frowned like under the impact of a great surprise: “You were gone?”

Lily understood Ginny. The guy was asking for a punch in his face.

Lori walked into the kitchen and rubbed her arms: “We’re freezing here! Lily close the window.”

“Good, I had nothing interesting to keep me in this part of the room, anyway,” she said glancing at Severus who pretended he heard nothing.

She ran to the window, and by the moonlight, she caught the slouchy form of a tent, a well-known crate, and even the metallic basin she remembered.

“Hey uncle Walt, some hobo is spreading around his junk outside.”

“Really?” said Walter with a fake surprise that was even more badly done than Severus’. “Good to know. I’ll kick him out by the morning.”

“Hey,” protested Severus, tossing gently the mashed potatoes in a cauldron.

“You should set his tent on fire too,’ suggested Lori.

“What?”. Severus let his wooden spoon hanging.

“And his clothes too, he’s probably full of fleas”, confirmed Lily.

“Are you done?” asked Severus, adding a mysterious spice. “Save some for me, you’re taking the best ideas. So now that we have a house-elf,” he said taking the plates in the cupboard “finally we have someone to set the table,” and he handed the plates at Lily.

“Me? A house elf?” she gasped.

“You have the right size, that’s enough for me.” Severus looked for the cutlery. he was used to the house for long. He was more used to the house than she was.

“I’m twice as tall!”

“So you’ll do twice the job”, said Severus putting the cutlery on top of the plates.

Lillian let go a scream of frustration that, this time, wasn’t faked at all.

Swaging her way back to the living room, now cleared of all mist, she saw the sofa covered with a folded blanket, a linen and a pillow. 

“Uncle Walt sleeps here?” asked Lillian to her mother who followed her with the glasses. Most of them were chipped, a souvenir of the times Lillian tried to help to put the glasses herself.

“Indeed, and Severus too. He lives here,” she said pointing the sofa with a glass.

A muffled voice came from the kitchen. “I don’t! I have my own tent.”

“He sleeps here every night since the weather is bad. Which means since the day after your departure.”

“That’s not true,” went on Severus from the kitchen. “I’m not a parasite. This is exceptional!”

“Exceptional every night,” chuckled Lori. “He said he would be gone by the time you’ll be back to, quote-unquote, ‘not disturb the family’. Like he cares.”

“I didn’t know you considered Lillian as family,” said Severus from the kitchen, then with a lower voice. “Toss me the newt eyes and the glycerin and let it sit..”

“What are they doing?” asked Lily, trying to not clang the plates on the table. Between two plates she found a dry mandragora leaf, shrugged and chewed on it.

Lori shrugged. “Ho, trying to save the world, something like that.”

“We’re trying to find a vaccine for rotavirus,” said the goggled head of Walter popping in the living room.

“Yep, that’s what it is. I haven’t retained the details,” casually said Lori.

“... in the kitchen?” asked Lily. “They’re making medical experiences in our kitchen?”

“Because your bedroom was already filled up with dragon poo”, said Severus entering the living room. He detached and folded the pink apron on a chair. “We had to find a storage room” he answered to the deadly glance Lily gave him.

“But why in the kitchen? Why with Uncle Walt?” A sudden realization came to her mind. “Walt is a wizard too? we’re both magical in the family? He didn’t know either?” Her heart started to beat more rapidly. “What is rotavirus, anyway?”

“A deadly disease that kills thousands of children every year. Looks like you made through it. Your uncle wants to fix this for some reason,” said Severus folding paper napkins like flowers and putting them on the plates.

“The muggle science is trying to find a cure for years. Rus has the experience and the missing ingredients to even find a vaccine. This would be revolutionary.”

Lily hid her disappointment. When it was to avoid someone’s feeling getting hurt, it was ok to hide. It wasn’t like lying. But she’d have prefered to have another magic member of the family. 

“Isn’t forbidden or something?” Severus signed to her she had put the knives the wrong side of the plates. She sighed and corrected this.

“Only if muggles hear about it,” said Walter taking off his lab coat and throwing it on the sofa.

“If we register a patent, they’ll never know,” said Severus taking the lab coat off the sofa and throwing it into Walter’s face. “We’re trying to create a precedent by exploring a law loophole.”

“As well as the muggle-wizard science possibilities.”

“Wizard medicine is in general effective, but severely lack imagination,” said Severus from the kitchen. He came back with the oversized turkey and tried hard to hide he was struggling. “Witches and wizards aren’t used to be challenged in their everyday life. They never came up with something even similar to vaccines. Muggle science is.. what’s the term?” said Severus, crashing the turkey in the middle of the table and looking at it like at a personal achievement. “It’s funny.”

“Look at this philosopher,” said Walter cutting the turkey. “You didn’t know vaccines even existed two months ago.”

“I’m a fast learner,” said Severus, pushing Lillian aside. “Away, this is my chair.”

“No it’s mine,” she said just to annoy him. She hadn’t stayed long enough in this house to have a sit that was hers. But it was where she was about to sit, so it wasn’t entirely a lie. 

“Finder keeper,” and he sat down and unfolded his serviette.

“What like you did with my entire family?”

“Exactly.”

Lily stuck her tongue at him and sat nearby him. Her stomach rumbled loudly. “It looks great mom!”

“I haven’t done anything, I was at work today until I got you at the train station,” said Lori serving her a generous part. “It’s Severus who cooked.”

“He can’t even cook marshmallows,” reminded Lily, her month already glued with a solid spoonful of mashed potatoes. It was delicious.

“He also tidy and clean the house,” continued Lori.

“It helps me concentrate on my bigger and very important project,” said Severus and Lily noticed a hint of embarrassment.

“But he can’t even set his tent himself without magic, I had to help him.”

“You didn’t help so much! Here, have some turkey, with a little luck you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

“Also when he runs errands, he…”

“It goes for you as well Lori,” said Severus serving her a ladle of mashed potatoes large enough to feed the rest of the Weasley family.

While uncle Walt was peeling chestnuts for her, Lillian observed Severus. His hair was overgrown and as badly kept as before, his cheek were unevenly sprinkled with salt and pepper beard, but he looked like he had taken some weight. The scar was still tearing down half his mouth in an expression of displeasure, but sometimes the other corner of his lips would slip aside and plough into his cheek, which was, Lily guessed, his way of smiling. With a sudden suspicion, she looked at his hands. They were reddened at the joints for being washed too often and his nails were short and perfectly clean. She knew it was the work of her mother and the only condition she let him cook, and she took a large bite of the juicy, fragrant stuffing. Her teeth met a hard object, and she coughed it out, dirtying herself and the table clothes. A tiny object of porcelain let on her lap.

“Ho, you found my pestle,” said Water taking the object full of meat and saliva without disgust. “I wondered where I had lost it.”

Severus put his elbow off the table and hide his face in his hands. “Walter for the love of any whatever you muggle believe in.” He rubbed his face, tearing down his mouth even lower. “I told you to put the scalpel inside. Not the pestle. How were we supposed to have a chance to cut this running tongue of hers?”

Lori, her mouth full and unable to speak, gave him a solid punch in the arm.

For the first time on the evening, Severus crashed his gaze in Lily’s: “Have you hurt your teeth? Did you lose one again?” he asked like she was losing teeth out of mindlessness.

She was about to protest when she realized his gaze wasn’t matching his voice tone. He was talking like a severe parent, but he was looking at her with concern. 

She showed off her intact dentition, and her canine growing out, he nodded and asked Lori if she wanted some wine. Then if she wasn’t too tired after her day of work. His look was still of concern more than affection, and was devoid of the soft tone typical of a caretaker. Lily understood why Severus was still here, and why he and her mom got along: she allowed him to worry about her. Severus was unable to bond with anyone who didn’t need his services.

Lily had heard about Severus at school. She has heard a lot, and at first, she didn’t believe half of it. But the consistency of the tales, and the newspapers and books she had read confirmed it. Severus had passed his life to serve. A friend, a cause, a word, a promise, a little boy, a memory, a dark lord, then another kind of lord. And even after he tried to disappear, he started to serve a little girl, a doctor, and a single mother. He was serving less and less, for stakes less and less pressing, but that probably satisfied him more. Maybe someday he’d be able to be around people without the need to make himself useful. Maybe one day, he’d just let himself be.

The diner passed off with lots of noise and banters. Lily pushed her plate to ask for cake, and Severus pretended it was a carrot cake because it was healthier. When midnight rang she bargained to open her presents at once and her uncle gave up quickly, to Lori’s desperation. 

As she tore apart the present paper and spread confetti everywhere, she turned to Rus: “Sorry I haven’t brought you a present, I didn’t know you’d be there.”

“Don’t worry about that. I haven’t brought any either. I had forgotten you existed.”

It was close to 1 am when Lillian was curling up on the sofa, on Rus’ curtain, cuddling a dragon plushie and reading a book about deep-sea creatures being aliens that wanted to conquer the land. She was rubbing her eyes and yawning every other breath. In the kitchen, she heard the clanging noise of Rus doing the dishes. Lori was arguing with Walter who wanted to test his new potion on Lily.

She hadn’t realized she had fallen asleep when a low voice whispered to her ear: “Get up, limp potato, that’s my bed.”

“No, that’s mine,” she mumbled, half asleep.

“Ok, I guess I’m gonna sleep in your bed, then.”

Lily was on her feet in the second. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Language,” said Rus putting his coat on. It was the same green, warm coat she had always knew him with. She instinctively knew he wasn’t spending a single cent of her mom’s money, and was even contributing to it. The new floor lamp she had ran into when she came in was probably his touch of the house. Lilian wondered if he was decorating the house as well as keeping it. Which would explain the skull on the chimney.

She stretched and dragged her feet to her bedroom. Rus was wrapping his grey scarf around his scar.

“Where are you going?” she asked, half yawning. A sudden concern woke her up a bit more. “You’re not sleeping outside, right? Is it because I’m here. because Walt is here? He sleeps in the sofa and you sleep outside?”

“How someone who can barely stand on her feet can talk so much. Silly girl, I’m just taking a walk outside.”

“I’m coming with you,” said Lily rushing to her coat, now fully awake.

“What the f… hell you think you’re doing?” asked Rus.

“You can say fuck, I’m not…”

“... a baby, I know, I know. You still to ask your mom, though. Deal with her when she’ll say no.”

“Moooooom?” yelled Lily without moving an inch. “Rus is pretending he doesn’t like me again but now it hurts my feelings!”

The screech coming from the kitchen was probably heard by dogs and bats; “Severus Tobias Snape, I told you if I ever caught you…”

“Alright, alright!” he gave up. “It’s too late.. or early in the morning to deal with this. Come with me, and get a pneumonia, I have a new potion to test. And stop smiling like this. I’m pretty sure what you just did was lying.”

“It was a bare truth,” said Lily opening the door.

The icy winter wind almost froze her on the spot, and for one second she had been tempted to shut it and curl up by the fire again. But the victorious glare Rus was sending her gave her courage. She hoped it would also give her an extra sweater.

The street were empty but not silent. Behind the blinds they could hear laughter, music and loud voices. The pavement was glittering under a night frost. The moon was low on the rooftops, disappearing and appearing as they walked, without a crack or a fiushh.

“Where are you going?” asked Lilian, blowing on her fingers.

“Nowhere,” said Severus. His cane was gently tapping the pavement. His limp was as bad as Lily remembered, but his gait somehow looked lighter. “I just like to walk a couple of miles before I sleep.”

“Where do you go?”

He waved a vague gesture around. “Where it strikes my fancy. Sometimes I stay around, sometimes I apparate in the woods, sometimes in London or elsewhere… I don’t have a definite goal in mind.”

“You walk alone?”

“I usually do,” he said looking at the stars. “But.. not always. It doesn’t have to be.” He cleared his throat and faked a sudden surprise. “Ho, look what someone forgot by this bin.”

he bent over the trash can as Lily was twisting her neck to see. She felt a muffled wave of magic, and Severus was standing again, holding a book in his hand. “The complete guide of healing plants,” he read aloud. “Well, if it’s sitting here, I guess no one wants it, you can keep it,” and he handed the book to Lily.

She took it. It was a large, second-hand book. Probably a very old edition.

“There is a ribbon wrapped around it,” she felt compelled to say.

“Weird what people do with books,” said Rus, resuming to walk again.

“There is a “for Lillian” written on the flyleaf.”

“Well that’s a pretty common name, isn’t why you hate it.”

“Someone tried to scratch something… “ she squinted, “Can’t read it all, it says...‘property of… the.. haft… blunt… prance?’”

“Just take this fucking book.”

Lily hugged the book against her chest and smiled: “This is the best Christmas gift you could have given to me.”

“What, a school book?” He looked genuinely shocked. “I’d thought you’d hate it.”

“Not the book. You finally said ‘fuck’.”

Severus rolled his eyes, and they finished their roll, they landed on a green silk tie with a green ribbon and Lillian’s hand around it.

“This is what mom give to men when she has no idea what to offer,” explained Lily. “I have no idea what you like.”

“... Thanks?”

“I thought I’d find you in the forest. Mom didn’t tell me you’re living here.”

“I’m not living here, I live in my tent and I..” he suddenly looked tired with himself. “I told her not to tell you I’m living here. Every time She was writing a letter to you, I was about to leave, and…”

“... and you never did. Just say you want to stay. Why do you always have to lie.”

“I don’t,” he said, weighting the cane in his hands. “I don’t aim for anything. I just…” he looked at the end of the road. “I just keep going to see where it gets me. Your place is not mine. This is not where I stay. This is not where I go. This is where I go back to. This is nice, to have a place to go back to.”

Lily froze in the middle of a step, and let go a scream so high that a nearby dog started to cry.

“What the fuck are you doing young lady?” 

Lily giggled. His voice tone was oddly similar to professor McGonagall. Minus the swear.

“I’m happy! I found out something!” she said jumping on her feet. She caught the glimpse of concern in Severus’ eyes when he made sure she wouldn’t slip on the crispy glaze. “This is exactly why I was sad. I wasn’t so happy to come back, you know? In the train and the car? In was happy to see mom, and Walt, and…anyway, but I wasn’t happy to go back here, because I don’t feel like I belong here. But this is the place I go back to! You’re right! We all need a place to go back to! So now I’m happy.”

Severus stared at her for a long minute with an expression hard to decipher, then he straightened up, taking the pose of a teacher. “What you just described is a pretty common feeling among muggle raised wizards. We belong to both worlds, and it can be confusing when it’s time to pick between which world we belong to, and which world we go back to..” He looked up the moon that was now hiding. “if we even have to pick at all.”

“That a lot of words to say ‘I relate’”, noticed Lily.

Severus sighed and Lily thought he’d start to swear, but instead he cleared his throat. “Do you.. do you have muggle raised friends in Ravenclaw?”

”I don’t know, I don’t ask.”

“Ask around. Make friends like you. People who can understand.”

“There is Slytherin boy like me who just arrived,” she remembered. “A lost half-blood like me.”

“Half-blood in Slytherin?” This time it was Severus who stopped in the middle of a step. “Try to reach him. He will…” he cleared his throat again, though to Lily his voice was clear. “He will feel very alone.” he started to walk again, a bit more quickly.

“You don’t feel alone when you’re alone in the house? When mom’s at work.”

“Dear, no. I’m way too busy. And she comes back to the place I come back to. I don’t wait for her. You only feel lonely when you wait for someone. I’m done waiting for anyone. Or anything.”

“If you move places, I want you to still consider my house as a place you can go back to.”

“Is it a request or a curse?”

“Maybe a curse. Maybe I’ll be good at curses. I had an Outstanding in charms, you know?”

“I saw your school report. Which means your ‘poor’ in both herbology and potion didn’t escape my notice. It looks like you’ll indeed need this,” he said tapping the old school book. “This is an extremely odd but welcomed coincidence, isn’t it?”

“I guess. I didn’t know you were working on an important muggle cure with my uncle. I guess you’ll need this too,” she said pointing the tie. “If you want to pass as a respectable muggle. Or at least a respectable citizen. Or respectable at all.”

He felt the silk between two fingers. “It seems none of us got what they wanted, but we both got what we needed.”

They turned at the corner of the street and the icy wind slapped Lily in her face. She skipped and blew on her fingers. Severus turned around and started to walk back.

“You haven’t walked your miles,” remarked Lily, following him.

“I don't have to walk all the miles. And it’s bedtime for little brats.”

“You don’t want to keep going?”

He shrugged. “I’ll keep going another day. It’s amazing how far you can go when you don’t wonder what makes you keep going.”

Lily spotted a frozen puddle and tried to ice skate on it with her heavy shoes. Indifferent to the cold, Severus unfolded the scarf that hid his scar, and clumsily knot the tie around his neck. An owl flew low over the roof, holding a letter between its claws, heading to Lily’s house. Lily left the puddle and started to run. This time, she was sure, it was bringing good news.   
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! I hope you had a good moment. I definitely had a great one working with the artist sealbatross for this bang. Fell free to pay us a visit on Tumblr at sealbatross.tumblr.com/ or 1800areyousnappin.tumblr.com/ (that's me). Or leave a comment, I love those! See you next fic!


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